Toprak Razgatlioglu targets himself in WorldSBK 2025

Toprak Razgatlioglu enters the 2025 WorldSBK season as the benchmark rider — the benchmark for the whole grid, including himself.

The Turkish rider’s 2024 title was clinched with dominance, winning 18 races from the 30 he started in his first year with BMW, including a winning run in the middle of the season of 13 consecutive races.

“What’s next for me? I did 13 wins in a row; I need to break the record again next year,” Razgatlioglu told WorldSBK.com at the EICMA show in Milan.

“This is a good target, it’s a very strong target, but I will try my best again.”

Razgatlioglu will have a new BMW M1000 RR with which to defend his WorldSBK title, but he hasn’t yet ridden the race-spec version of the new machine.

“The first [change] is we are using the number 1 — this is nice, again,” Razgatlioglu said of the new bike.

“I’ve not tested because in Aragon the weather is a little bit difficult and we cancelled the test,” he continued.

“But the standard bike is amazing, but we don’t know the race bike.

“We have a test, but I don’t know when, but it looks like the bike is beautiful. But I need to ride the bike to understand it.”

Sylvain Guintoli has tested the new bike in Aragon, but this was of little use to Razgatlioglu because “he’s [Guintoli] only ridden in wet conditions, so he’s not understood anything, but we will see the next test.”

Razgatlioglu missed the post-race test in Jerez after the final round there last month because he went home to Turkiye to celebrate his world title success.

“In Turkiye, many people came to celebrate in the airport and we did the incredible celebrations with many bikes,” he reflected.

“Now I’m getting famous, I understand this, because many people know me; when I go to Istanbul and in the traffic everyone [sounds] their horn — I understand this is very nice.

“I’m very happy because everyone supports me, it’s nice.”