"Testing is testing, but racing is different, there are a lot of things that you have to control..."
Nicolo Bulega dominated proceedings on the opening day of the World Superbike season at Phillip Island.
The Italian set the fastest lap time of the day and topped Free Practice One and Two. Bulega ends the day as the clear favourite for Saturday and Sunday as he has a gap of 0.406 seconds over the field.
"My Day One was very good, we tried to improve a little bit from testing and I think we improved something," Bulega told WorldSBK.com.
"Not everything that we tried but we made some little improvements. I am happy about my Friday feeling, and we have to see for tomorrow with the track temperature.
"It will be a lot higher and we have to understand with the team if we have to adjust something on the bike and me on my riding style.
"Between Free Practice One and Free Practice Two in the afternoon I felt the track temperature was a bit higher. I think tomorrow the weather will be much more [warmer] we could have some heat problems."
Throughout the day Bulega's one-lap pace was blistering was his race pace was equally as impressive. Despite his potential race-winning pace, he does not believe he has found his best feeling for the races yet.
"I had a very good race pace, but in the afternoon I still had a good race pace but the feeling was not as good as this morning," Bulega explained.
"We have to study the data from this afternoon very well to understand what we have to do in hot temperatures."
However, like at the end of testing Bulega continues to shoot down claims that he is the favourite for this weekend.
"Testing is testing, but racing is different, there are a lot of things that you have to control more," he stated.
"Especially here as we have to do the flag-to-flag [pit stops] which is one more thing that you have to pay attention to.
"I am in the left position in the pit lane to change tyres so for me it is even more difficult. I have to make a turn to the left and then a turn to the right in the middle of a lot of mechanics."
