SBK Donington Park, FP3: Ducati well ahead – Dixon surprises with Honda

Following the two free practice sessions on Friday, World Championship leader Nicolo Bulega from the Ducati factory team topped the combined timesheets with a time of 1:25.460, putting him a good two-tenths of a second ahead of second-placed Ducati privateer Yari Montella.

As a point of reference: Toprak Razgatlioglu (BMW) has held the pole position record since 2024 with a time of 1:24.629 mins; the Turkish rider set the fastest race lap in the same year during the second race, clocking 1:25.597 mins.

Tarran Mackenzie’s home race is over: the Briton crashed during FP2 on Friday afternoon and, according to an initial diagnosis, sustained injuries to his left shoulder, lower leg and ankle, with suspected fractures to his collarbone and ankle. He has also suffered a concussion. The Ducati rider was taken to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham for further examinations.

In the 20-minute FP3 session on Saturday morning, starting at 9.40 am – England is one hour behind CET – Iker Lecuona clocked a time of 1:25.668 on his very first flying lap in air temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius – cooler than on Friday – whilst on his second lap, Bulega set the fastest lap of the weekend so far with a time of 1:25.378.

As riders adopt very different strategies in FP3 and take to the track on different tyres – qualifying tyres are also used in England – the times are only of limited use for comparison.

At the halfway stage, Bulega improved his time to 1:25.138; in the final five minutes, numerous riders went in search of faster times. Sam Lowes (Marc VDS Ducati) catapulted himself to the top with a time of 1:24.756 minutes, coming within a whisker of the lap record of 1:24.629 minutes.

The Englishman Lowes finished the session as the fastest rider, followed by his Ducati team-mates Montella, Lecuona and Bulega. Bimota works rider Alex Lowes, in fifth place, was already over half a second off the pace, whilst comeback rider Jake Dixon surprised everyone by finishing seventh on his Honda.

BMW continues to struggle following Friday’s disaster: Miguel Oliveira and Danilo Petrucci were 1.1 and 1.8 seconds off the pace respectively, finishing in 14th and 22nd places. In the Italian’s case, this equates to last place.