Topping the opening day of action at the 2023 Acerbis Czech Round, the Autodrom Most’s most successful rider from the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship. Four wins mean this is Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK) territory and with the pendulum swinging his way in a dramatic fashion after Imola, the Turkish star hopes he can close down the Championship lead even further before the summer break. That Championship leader is reigning World Champion Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) and whilst he was sixth, he wasn’t his usual self in what was a tricky opening day for the Spaniard. We caught up with both at the close of Friday action, to find out how their battle is shaping up.
HOW IT HAPPENED: elbows out in the wet from the start in FP1
FP1 started in wet conditions and there was a fruity moment on track between Razgatlioglu and Bautista, with the #54 barrelling through up the inside of the Ducati rider at Turn 15, catching the defending Champion by surprise. As the session went on, Toprak was briefly on top before being pipped by Scott Redding (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team), whilst Bautista didn’t set a time in the drying final ten minutes of the session, being stuck down in P17.
Nevertheless, it was a slightly different afternoon session as the rain abated and the sun tried to peak through the clouds overhead. Razgatlioglu fired in plenty of fast times on his final run to go top by just 0.012s ahead of fellow Yamaha rider Remy Gardner (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team), whereas Bautista couldn’t challenge at the front and was the fourth Ducati home, finishing sixth overall. It also seemed that the #1 had technical issues, missing a lot of the opening part of FP2.
IN HIS OWN WORDS: “I felt good with the bike and also confident”
Talking about his first day at Most, Razgatlioglu – who is 70 points behind Bautista in the title race – shared his day one experience: “First, I want to say that I’m very happy to come back to Most again as I like this track! The wet conditions weren’t so bad, I felt good with the bike and also confident. After, it was dry and I did one lap, but Scott did a very good job. In FP2, we were still working for a good setup on the bike as everyone uses the hard tyre, especially here. It doesn’t look bad, but we’re still working. In the wet, the feeling is better as I remember in FP3 two years ago, I felt good grip here immediately and today, I went fast straight away. After four years, I’m starting to feel confident! Both conditions are OK, no problem.”
Fast through sectors one and two, the second half of the lap, particularly sector four, seems to be causing issues, which Razgatlioglu explained: “The problem was in Turn 18 and Turn 19, as I was feeling the bike spinning a lot and the acceleration isn’t good. We’re still working to try and find a good setup. In the first two sectors, the corners are slower and I am strong, but in three and four… three isn’t bad but sector four, I’m very bad. We need to improve there because of the spinning and the acceleration, as the lap time isn’t coming.
“We’ll see tomorrow and I hope that we improve in the last sector. We did a good job through the rest of the lap, but the pace is going to be very important this weekend. My pace doesn’t look bad but if we improve in the final sector, it can be better than the others. I’m confident, feeling good but if we improve a little bit more, then we can feel much better but in general, right now, I’m happy for the first day.”
BAUTISTA UNHAPPY ON DAY 1: “It wasn’t the best Friday… we have almost everything to do for tomorrow”
Elsewhere in the red corner, Bautista’s first day was evaluated and he detailed the difficulties endured throughout day one: “Today has been difficult for us; in the morning, the track conditions were tricky, not ready for wet or slick tyres. I didn’t do a lot of laps. In the afternoon, on the first lap, I had an issue with the bike with the pressure of the oil. The engine we used today was very well used with a lot of kilometres, and there was something strange with the oil pressure. In the end, we lost a lot of time in the box. Anyway, I got some laps and a reference. It wasn’t the best Friday but tomorrow’s another day and I’m confident that it will be better.”
When asked about to improve on Saturday and what is on the agenda to do so, Bautista was clear that there’s a lot to get through: “We have almost everything to do for tomorrow; Pirelli brought the new tyres and nobody had a reference with them. Today, our target was just to compare the tyres we know and the new ones, but in the end, we couldn’t. Tomorrow, I don’t know if we’ll have time in FP3 because the weather conditions will be different to today. We’ll try our best anyway; the setup of the bike wasn’t perfect today as we didn’t have so much time on the track and I didn’t feel comfortable, so we’ll change some items and improve the feeling. Tomorrow, we’ll start from zero. I hope for good weather tomorrow as we have a lot of work to do.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com