Toprak Razgatlioglu wins 2024 World Superbike Championship
Toprak Razgatlioglu has clinched his second WorldSBK title at the final round in Jerez.
A second place in Race 1 at this weekend’s WorldSBK Spanish Round was enough for Toprak Razgatlioglu to win the 2024 World Superbike Championship with two races still to go.
Razgatlioglu’s title — his second, after 2021 — was won in his first season with BMW, the German manufacturer also clinching its own first title in WorldSBK thanks to the Turkish rider’s accomplishment.
It has been done in a season which has seen Razgatlioglu win 17 races — with two still to go — and take 26 podiums from the 34 races run so far.
Razgatlioglu’s season has also included a record winning run of 13 races in the middle of the year, stretching between Race 2 at the Dutch Round until Race 2 at the Portuguese Round.
The winning streak was halted when Razgatlioglu crashed in practice for the French Round at the beginning of September and suffered a collapsed lung.
It was an injury which threatened to prevent him from securing the championship despite his dominance preceding it.
He was forced to miss the races in France, and the Italian Round in its entirety, but on his return to racing in Aragon he immediately returned to the podium, finishing second in all three races at MotorLand.
Three more podiums, including two wins, at last weekend’s Estoril Round saw Razgatlioglu come within touching distance of the title, and meant that a second place in today’s Race 1 at Jerez was enough for him to be crowned champion — despite his closest rival, Nicolo Bulega, winning the race — with two races still to run.