Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) had a fantastic Saturday at the Autodrom Most in the 16th race of the season for the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship. The #54 admitted that he is just focused on lap times at the moment after finishing the second day of action on top – adding to his dominant win tally.
The 2021 WorldSBK Champion began the day in style, topping FP3 by almost eight-tenths of a second. Entering Superpole with added confidence, Razgatlioglu was unstoppable, placing his BMW on pole position for Race 1 – setting a magnificent 1’30.064.
After starting from pole position, the Turkish star took the holeshot on the run down to Turn 1, comfortable extending a lead early on before storming to claim his 10th victory with BMW – his eighth win in a row. The gap to the field behind was 5.740s to Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) in second and Andrea Iannone (Team GoEleven) in third.
Discussing a fantastic Race 1, Razgatlioglu said: “I’m happy because I was very strong. Maybe not like Donington. I was a little bit closer to the other riders, but I had a very good race pace. In the last four or five laps, I just closed the gas, especially in the left corners. I remember last year when I crashed at Turn 2. We won by six seconds. This is good. We have two more races tomorrow and now I’m focused on this.”
Razgatlioglu was consistently lapping within the low 1’32 bracket in Race 1, setting the fastest lap in the process. The key to his race was consistently after he was the quickest rider in the first half of the lap, setting the fastest times of anyone in Sectors 1 and 2.
After victory in Race 1, it adds an extra 25 points to Razgatlioglu’s tally – extending his Championship lead to an impressive 56 points. However, on Sunday, “El Turco” will have the opportunity to win a further two races and bag 50 points, starting with the Superpole Race at 11:00 and Race 2 at 14:00 Local Time (UTC+2).
After spending the day focused on what he had to do, the #54 confirms that all attention now turns to Sunday: “For me, it’s easy, because I’m just focused on my job. I ride the bike, making no mistakes, I’m just focused on lap times. It looks like it’s under control but sometimes not everything goes well. In this race, I felt good and I was just riding. In the last laps, I closed the gas. It looks like everything is under control. Tomorrow, in the Superpole Race, I’ll need to push more because there won’t be any tyre problems in 10 laps.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com