TOPRAK RAZGATLIOGLU ‘NOBODY BELIEVED IN BMW. BUT I DID’
Toprak Razgatlioglu revels in a bit of sensation. He walked away from Kawasaki at the end of 2019 and headed to Yamaha. They all said he’d never suit the R1, that his career was over. By the end of his second season, he was their first WSBK champ for 12 years. Fast-forward to 2023 and it seemed history was repeating. After four seasons at Yamaha, Toprak announced he was heading to BMW from 2024. Cue the same criticism, not to mention those who said he was only doing it for a huge pay packet. The superstar from Antalya is so good (which he knows in the humblest of ways) that he simply doesn’t need to employ the mind games and try to play the media in the way others sometimes do.
“He doesn’t realise the difference he makes,” a Yamaha insider told MCN last year, so upset were they to have lost him from the family. It’s illegal to fit a supercharger to a World Superbike machine but Toprak is like the human equivalent of one; he’s the magic element and can seemingly do anything with any team or motorbike.
Can Toprak do the ‘impossible’ and win the 2024 title for BMW? It’s a company that has a history of promising a lot in superbikes but ultimately failing to deliver despite flashes of brilliance. However, there’s no shadow of a doubt that the mood within the AngloGerman team, run by Shaun Muir Racing and heavily supported by BMW Motorrad complete with full test team, is better than ever.
It’s also very clear that Michael van der Mark, plus Scott Redding and Garrett Gerloff in the adjacent Bonovo Action squad, know there are no excuses now that Toprak has joined the party.
Muir has played down their title chances, and so has Toprak himself during the off-season, stating that wins and multiple podiums are realistic for 2024 ahead of a championship assault in 2025.
It’s the same for those of us watching trackside, our heads tell us the same but our hearts say: ‘This is Toprak Razgatlioglu. The man who works wonders.’
He also contributed to one of the images of the year so far as Valentino Rossi turned up at the Portimao test to join the fun on a Yamaha R1. Rossi and Toprak sharing a race track…who would have thought it? Dreams really do come true!
“Nobody believed in BMW… but I did,” Toprak says. “There’s huge potential. We’re not there yet. Some journalists wrote that I said we’re 99% there, but it’s more like 90%. The front of the bike is great, the power is much better than what I had before, and the engine braking is sensational. We just need time.
“We’ll know better after Phillip Island and Barcelona, which will be our two most challenging tracks due to the long corners which eat tyres and the low grip levels at Barcelona. Everyone is pushing so hard, which really motivates me. I’m very, very happy here at BMW.”