Razgatlıoğlu Thrills in Podium Fightback at Aragón Season-Opening Race

Today we started very strong, even if last year I was not fast at this track – I have done a lot of good work with my team and they have done a very good job, because I could fight to be on the podium! It’s a good start for the first race to be on the podium, quite close to the winner, and I am very happy after starting on row four! It was a great battle with Alex, because we touched but this is racing and congratulations to him for passing me on the last corner – we were fighting so much for second position! We will see if there are some improvements we can make for tomorrow, we have seen a lot of riders struggle in some areas, but we will try with my team maybe some small differences to the set-up to improve the bike for the Superpole Race and Race 2. We will see – but I will try again for the podium!

I’m really happy about today, because in the end we finished 10th, which is not so bad for my first race! We need to work, but today I learned to understand so much more, I’m confident because the bike is good and the feeling is there. Tomorrow is not going to be easy, but in some ways it will be better for me now that I understand more. But I am really happy, we work so well during the weekend with the guys, it’s fantastic to work with this team. This was just the first opportunity for us and we will see tomorrow, but for sure I think we can improve again. For Toprak to make the podium shows it is possible to perform well here, and it gives me confidence to keep working on understanding more and looking to improve my riding style on the Yamaha R1 WorldSBK.

What a fantastic start to the 2021 WorldSBK season, a really exciting race! For Toprak to finish so close to the winner and cross the line in almost a dead heat for second place here at MotorLand Aragón, with the history we’ve had here, is honestly a little beyond expectation. Toprak rode a sublime race, after his qualifying penalty he had to be aggressive at the start and he was up to fifth place within a matter of corners, and after that he balanced aggressive riding with tyre management, using the softer X compound to great effect. We didn’t win, but that’s as good as I’ve ever seen Toprak race and it also demonstrates the steps both he and his R1 have taken for 2021. We’re also very pleased for Loka. He had a difficult start to the race but showed his intelligence, experience and skills to work his way consistently up into the top 10 – which is a really strong result for your first ever Superbike race. Tomorrow conditions look to be quite different with cloud and lower temperatures, difficult to say if this will be good or bad for the Yamaha R1 WorldSBK – but either way, today gives us a lot of confidence in what we may be able to achieve across the rest of the season.