Razgatlioglu unblocks himself at the University: “Title? I'm not thinking about it”

Toprak broke free in Assen

For now, the Superbike championship has 'only' played three stages and the ranking is still quite short, but after the 'counterattack' started in Australia by Nicolò Bulega and Alex Lowes in the last races, two of the three great expected protagonists are progressively taking the stage of this 2024. Alvaro Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu they are first and second respectively in the standings, separated by just six points. The BMW Turk beat the two-time world champion in both Race-1 and Race-2, but the unfortunate Superpole Race ultimately saw Bautista smiling in the points balance because the Spaniard scored a total of two more than his great rival .

Razgatlioglu can still be satisfied because the BMW bet for now he is giving unexpected results on the eve of the World Championship. Out of nine races Toprak won three, reaching the podium five times, an unthinkable performance on the eve of the championship. In the account for now there is a zero for the engine that failed in Australia and a ninth place in the Superpole Race in Assen which, according to Kenan Sofuoglu's protégé, is due to a choice of the wrong tire: “We mounted the SCQ like everyone else did, but usually we make different choices than others and we had to do it this time too”her words.

In Race-2, however, redemption came by moving up from the third row: “Starting ninth is not a problem if you are fast – added Razgatlioglu – it wasn't easy to manage the rain drops, at that moment I preferred to follow Bautista because he has more experience than me, then when I realized that everything was dry again I pushed as hard as I could. I needed a victory, it's the first for me in Assen and also the first for BMW. I'm learning something every day, I don't think about the championship, I want to experience the situation race by race so now I will think about Misano. We'll see how it goes, I'm happy that we have a (collective, ed.) test scheduled first so we can prepare a good set-up and then obviously I'll try to win.”