Razgatlioglu 'in a cage': “Ducati doesn't consume rubber, BMW does”

A lion in a cage

Fourth at the finish line, fifth in the order of arrival due to a one second penalty to be served for an incorrect procedure when exiting the pits: the debut of Toprak Razgatlioglu riding the BMW in the Superbike championship is not as sweet as the 2021 world champion hoped.

On a day when Alvaro Bautista he crashed, finishing 15th with Jonathan Rea 17th. It was legitimate for Razgatlioglu to hope for something more, but the wear of the rear tire trapped Kenan Sofuoglu's pupil despite the mandatory pit stop to change the tyre.

“Doing 10 laps in a race here in Australia is difficult for me in terms of rear tire life – Razgatlioglu explained to the microphones of the official Superbike website – I would have liked to finish on the podium and I have the potential to lap faster, but I have to keep it in my hand because otherwise I won't reach the finish line, the tire at the end had a lot of tears even when running in management. We will analyze the data to try to be more ready for tomorrow's races, these are two more opportunities to try to get on the podium, even if I knew that it wouldn't be easy for me and for BMW here.”

Razgatlioglu has thus commented on the second penalty collected upon exiting the pits after changing tires: “The penalty? I do not know what happened, maybe problems with the GPS, I saw 0 on the dashboard and left, I didn't get any benefit. Obviously it would have been better to finish fourth rather than fifth, but even fourth place wasn't my goal anyway.”. Regarding the victory and the podium of two rookies like Bulega and Iannone Razgatlioglu, he underlined that he continues to wonder why Ducati doesn't 'eat' the rear tire like BMW does: “Perhaps the Ducati chassis is able to preserve the rubber better, I don't know how Bulega and Iannone managed to keep those times at the end of the race. If I had done that too I would have run out of tire too soon.”