WorldSBK Phillip Island: ‘Crash not Lowes’ fault’ - Razgatlioglu

Pata Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu came away from 2023’s WorldSBK Championship opening round with a double podium celebration at Phillip Island.

Nobody gave Razgatlioglu a real chance against the might of Alvaro Bautista and his even better 2023 version of the V4R Ducati heading into the first round in Australia. Even Razgatlioglu was a little less than confident pre-race weekend. But as it tuned out the first prize of the new season, Superpole Qualifying, went to Razgatlioglu not Bautista.

Toprak was just over a tenth away from the very best qualifying time ever, but in the races, wet or dry, he could not lay a glove on the three times winner Bautista.

In Race Two, fighting in the chasing pack, he was taken out when Alex Lowes (basically blameless, said Razgatlioglu) fell entering T4 and Razgatlioglu got collected. Third, Third, no score for the 2021 champion, Razgatlioglu is currently sixth in the championship standings, a massive 39 points behind runaway triple PI winner Bautista.

A bad start in Race Two did not help. “Normally, I’m very good starting, but Race Two is very bad,” he admitted. “It was bad luck, maybe. The big problem for the second race was that everybody used more hard tyre because in the short race we used an SC0 tyre.

“The SC0 tyre on my bike is unbelievable and I had a very good feeling.

“Just a short race maybe we have one more lap, I could easily pass Michael Ruben Rinaldi, because he started a big drop. In Race Two we used the hard tyre, but my bike completely changed. Especially in first laps I was not feeling the grip and bike was not turning. I just tried to keep the rear tyre. I followed Johnny [Rea] and tried for best position. But we crashed with Alex. Not his fault, but I try just a