Toprak Razgatlioglu puts BMW in WorldSBK title lead, ties Haga, targets 'dream' triple

Toprak Razgatlioglu sets his sights on a clean sweep at Misano after taking the title lead by winning Saturday’s Race 1.

Peter McLaren

15 Jun 2024

Victory in race one at Misano on Saturday also made Toprak Razgatlioglu the first BMW rider to lead the World Superbike championship since Marco Melandri in 2012.

Razgatlioglu’s fourth win of the season was rarely in doubt, passing Remy Gardner for the lead on lap 4 and then riding to a 1.8s victory over the Ducati of Nicolo Bulega.

Third place for Bulega’s Ducati team-mate Alvaro Bautista cost the reigning champion the title lead to Razgatlioglu by three points heading into Sunday’s races.

“Really strong race, for everyone, because of the hot condition. The bike was just spinning and especially I was feeling a lot of locking from the front tyre, because I use hard front tyre,” Razgatlioglu told the official WorldSBK website.

“I'm just focused to ride a bike and try to do a good pace, but finally we win. I’m happy and now we are the championship leader, but I'm not focused this.

“I'm just focused tomorrow because I have two more races. I'll try my best again because this is my dream, my target; three race wins. We will see tomorrow.”

Quizzed on why, unlike his rivals, he had chosen the hard SC2 front tyre, Razgatlioglu replied:

“In the hot conditions I like a harder tyre. But also this one after 10-12 laps I feel a lot of movement. But I kept fighting because I really need to win.

“But tomorrow I need to improve the bike because after 10 laps especially I need some more grip.”

But he will join his rivals on the SC1 for the shorter Superpole race.

“For 10 laps, I don't need to save the rear tyre and I'll use also the SC1 front tyre,” he said. “I think we will be pushing more than today because 10 laps and also not really hot conditions at 11am.

“But we will see tomorrow. I'm just really focused on Race 2 because tomorrow looks even more hot than today. And I think we will feel the same situation, the heat and sliding, so looks like we need to improve bike.”

Razgatlioglu is now tied with Noriyuki Haga on 43 wins, for joint fifth on the all-time WorldSBK winners’ list behind Jonathan Rea (119), Alvaro Bautista (61), Carl Fogerty (59) and Troy Bayliss (52).