A total of 71 races have been held at Assen, as only in the last five years have there been three races per weekend. In 2019, the year the Superpole Race was introduced, bad weather on Saturday led to Race 1 being postponed to Sunday morning, and the Superpole Race was therefore canceled.
GP data
According to Brembo engineers who work closely with 13 of the 14 teams in the Superbike World Championship, the 4.542 km long TT Circuit Assen falls into the category of circuits that are not very demanding on brakes. On a scale from 1 to 5, it has earned a difficulty index of 1, even though riders use the brakes 10 times per lap for a total of 26.7 seconds. Only 2 of these braking actions are classified as High, 5 as Medium, and 3 as Light.
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The hardest corner for the braking system at the TT Circuit Assen is the first one, as it is the only one with a deceleration of over 150 km/h. Using the brakes for 3.6 seconds with a lever load of 4.6 kg, riders manage to reduce their speed from 269 km/h to 113 km/h, experiencing a deceleration of 1.5 g. Meanwhile, the Superbikes cover 187 meters while the brake fluid pressure reaches 9.9 bar.
Bulega and the brakes
Ducati and Nicolò Bulega are the great dominators of this early 2026 season with 6 victories in the 6 races held. His Panigale V4R uses a pair of Brembo steel discs at the front, while in the 2 MotoGP GPs raced with Ducati last autumn, he used Brembo carbon discs. Bulega explained that MotoGP, due to different tires and a larger disc diameter: "Brakes more, I have to completely recalibrate my way of braking."
Nicolò's Choices
This season, in the Superbike World Championship, Nicolò Bulega is using 338.5 mm diameter and 6.5 mm thick steel discs on all tracks. The Ducati rider prefers finned discs because they enhance cooling. However, at the end of Friday's FP1, the Aruba team technicians meet with Brembo's to assess whether to keep the disc or replace it, and even whether to add air ducts to channel as much air as possible into the heat exchange area between the pad and the disc.
The firsts with Brembo
At Assen, 4 riders achieved their first victory in the Superbike World Championship: the first was Chris Walker in 2006 with the ZX10R of the Kawasaki PSG-1 Corse team, followed in 2012 by Sylvain Guintoli with the Ducati 1098R of the Effenbert Liberty Racing team. More recent are the last two firsts, achieved by Nicholas Spinelli in 2024 with the Ducati Panigale V4R of the Barni Spark team and last year by Andrea Locatelli with the YZF-R1 of Pata Prometeon Yamaha. The only common element among the 4 bikes is the Brembo braking system, although it has since been evolved: today's calipers feature cooling fins to reduce thermal stress.