Toprak Razgatlioglu “lucky” to finish fourth in Dutch WorldSBK Race 1

BMW’s Toprak Razgatlioglu says rear grip struggles meant he was “lucky” to finish fourth in WorldSBK Race 1 at this weekend’s Dutch Round.

Razgatlioglu started the race from sixth after a penalty incurred after Superpole having been judged to have impeded Nicolo Bulega, who qualified second and went on to win Race 1.

Razgatlioglu said he wasn’t bothered by the penalty, such are his concerns about the setup of his BMW M1000 RR at present.

“I don’t care about the penalty,” Razgatlioglu told WorldSBK.com.

“Normally this is not my style, I’m always looking behind, but I didn’t see Bulega. Also, when I’m going to turn nine, I’m looking behind, also I’m going to the right side, but also Bassani is very close to me, but normally this is Bassani’s fault, for me.

“Anyway, we ride slow with him [Bassani], we get the penalty – this is true, no problem – but for me the biggest problem now is the bike setup.”

Razgatlioglu was able to fight through to second place in the first half of Race 1, a position he would ordinarily expect to hold on to. However, on this occasion, he fell back in the second half of the race, dropping behind Andrea Locatelli and then Danilo Petrucci as rear grip woes saw him finish over 17 seconds off the win.

For the reigning World Superbike Champion, it was the first time he had finished a race and not visited the rostrum since the Superpole Race at Assen last year.

“In the race, I’ve had many problems because the bike wasn’t turning and also the grip– in the beginning there was not bad grip, but after 10 laps, after I passed Locatelli, I felt very strange in the last sector, the rear tyre started to drop a lot,” he explained.

“The next lap I feel also in turn three a lot, and the other laps also it was getting worse.

“I finished the race P4, I’m also lucky I finished the race P4. It was impossible to fight with Petrucci because [his] rear tyre was no problem, only the front tyre – also I had a front tyre problem, but I’m [easily managing] the front tyre.

“But the rear, when the rear drops it’s impossible for me to fight for the good positions. We finished like this. I’m really sad for this because normally I’m always finishing the race on the podium or some technical problem, but this time the tyres dropped too early and I finished the race P4.”

With rain in the forecast for Sunday morning, Razgatlioglu was simply hoping that his tyre consumption would be more economical in the wet than in the dry.

“I don’t have any strategy because I just need to improve the bike for the dry sessions, because the rear tyre after 10 laps is dropped,” he said.

“We need to improve more, and for the wet condition, I don’t know, we will see tomorrow.

“I hope in the wet condition the rear tyre is not dropping like today. We will see. I’m never riding [...] this bike in the wet conditions, but tomorrow we will see, it looks like tomorrow morning it will rain.”