Axel Bassani makes Toprak Razgatlioglu, Marc Marquez comparison

Bimota WorldSBK rider Axel Bassani has compared Toprak Razgatlioglu with Marc Marquez, saying the Turkish rider “can do something more” even if he doesn’t have the most competitive bike.

While Marquez is currently dominating the 2025 MotoGP season with the accepted best bike on the grid, the Ducati Desmosedici GP, all six of his premier class titles so far were won on the Honda RC213V, which was only rarely the clear best bike on the grid during the Spanish rider’s time with HRC.

In many cases, Marquez’s successes were achieved by the rider overcoming a perceived performance deficit compared to other bikes, such as the Ducati between 2017–2019.

This is the basis for Bassani’s comparison between Marquez and Razgatlioglu, the two-time World Superbike Champion being the only rider to have won a dry WorldSBK race on the BMW M1000 RR.

“I was faster than Toprak [Razgatlioglu],” Bassani said, as reported by WorldSBK.com, after battling with Razgatlioglu in Race 2 at last weekend's WorldSBK Dutch Round.

“I saw that he was in trouble, when he was applying throttle, he was losing the front.

“It was difficult to overtake him as he’s always braking really hard, and on the straight he’s much faster than me.

“When he made a little mistake at turn eight or nine, I overtook him, but it was not easy. He’s one of the worst guys to overtake!

“I always say that, at the moment, Toprak is the best rider on the track. The BMW isn’t the same as last year, it has some problems, but Toprak is Toprak.

“He’s like Marc Marquez, even when the bike isn’t working, he can do something more.”

Bassani was able to secure Bimota’s first top-five with its new Kawasaki-powered KB998 machine in Race 2 at Assen after the battle with Razgatlioglu.

“I’m really happy, especially for Bimota, because arriving in the top-five in World Superbike is not easy because the level is really high,” Bassani told WorldSBK.com.

“[In Race 1] I really tried to arrive in P5, maybe too much – I did a mistake and I went down in the last lap – but today I did it so I’m really happy.”

His fifth-place finish also matched his best result on the Kawasaki ZX-10RR of last year, taken in Race 1 at the Italian Round at Cremona, which coincidentally is the next venue on the 2025 WorldSBK calendar, set for 2–4 May.

Going there off the back of a strong race in Assen is cause for optimism for Bassani.

“I hope to have a good weekend because usually we have a lot of fans there [and] it’s always nice to do a good race for them,” he said.

“I will try my best. It will be our first ever time with the Bimota in Cremona, so I don’t know what to expect, we will see after Friday.

“I think we can do a good job, today we found something on the bike that is working, so I have a good feeling.”