Toprak Razgatlioglu won FIM Superbike World Championship Race One Saturday at Circuito de Barcelona-Catalunya, in Spain. Riding his ROKiT BMW M 1000 RR, the Turkish racer won the 20-lap race by 0.868 second.
Nicolo Bulega was the runner-up on his Aruba.it Racing Ducati, and Bulega’s teammate, defending Champion Alvaro Bautista, placed third.
American Garrett Gerloff finished 12th on his Bonovo Action BMW.
More, from a press release issued by Dorna:
Stunning first win for Toprak and BMW
Toprak Razgatlioglu claims his first victory for BMW
Double podium for Aruba.it Racing – Ducati with Alvaro Bautista recovering from the fifth row of the grid
Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) concedes the Championship lead with a sixth place finish
Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) led the majority of the race. At one point the Italian had opened a four second lead but in Catalunya tyre consumption is a key factor and with a harder front tyre Razgatlioglu could close down that margin. The BMW rider would take the lead on the 20th and final lap.
Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), winner of six races in a row at this circuit, was handed a grid penalty that dropped him to the fifth row of the grid for the start. The reigning World Champion recovered to finish third and move up to fourth position in the Championship standings. Andrea Iannone (Team GoEleven) continued to impress as a rookie with a fourth position finish. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) started the race as the Championship leader and finished in sixth position. Lowes dropped a single point behind Bulega in the Championship standings with Razgatlioglu now third.
Having smashed the lap record in the Superpole session Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) was aiming for a podium in Race 1 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Instead the Turkish star came from behind to claim the race victory in the opening race of the Pirelli Catalunya Round.
The win marked BMW’s first success since 2021 and validated Razgatlioglu’s decision to switch manufacturers for this season. His teammate, Michael van der Mark, had been combative throughout the race before falling to ninth place at the finish.
More on worldsbk.com
P1 | Toprak Razgatlioglu | ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team
“I’m really happy. Every day the team has done an unbelievable job and they have worked really hard. It’s important for me to win at this circuit because I’ve never won here. It’s been a dream of mine to win in Catalunya and this is unbelievable. It was a very hard race. My plan was to ride a little bit slower than the others and at the start I was waiting for Bulega because the other riders were pushing very hard. After Bulega had come past I thought I’d follow him. After two laps later I felt that I was pushing too hard. I slowed down to save the rear tyre. I thought a podium would be enough for me. In the last five laps here, the rear tyre has a big drop. I saw Iannone started to drop and then Bulega also dropped in the last five laps. I was pushing hard, especially on the brakes. On the last lap, I passed him. Maybe it was a good strategy for me.”
P2 | Nicolo Bulega | Aruba.it Racing – Ducati
“This was my first long race because we had pit stops in Australia. At the end of the race unfortunately I had no grip from the rear tyre. It was difficult for me to manage this and Toprak was very fast at the end. His lap times were better than mine. Maybe, I push a little too hard at the beginning of the race to overtake riders. Today, I learned something and I will be better prepared next time.”
P3 | Alvaro Bautista | Aruba.it Racing – Ducati
“It’s never easy because this track is so complicated. You have to manage the tyres. I was in the situation that I wanted to push more in the first laps to gain some positions but I also had to save my tyres. I tried to keep calm and to manage the tyre as well as possible. I had some problems in the big group because the front overheated. I had to save some slides with my elbow. When you are behind the other riders, the front tyre doesn’t work as expected and I struggled to brake hard or enter fast into corners. I think our best was to get a podium, but this was a surprise for me.”
More, from a press release issued by Pirelli:
Razgatlioğlu gambles on the Pirelli standard SCX to win Race 1
The BMW rider bested Bulega (Ducati) at the end of the final lap; in WorldSSP Huertas (Ducati) wins his first race in the category
In Race 1 of the Catalan round, the first European stop for the FIM World Superbike Championship, after a solitary ride all the way to the final lap, Nicolò Bulega (Ducati) gave over to Toprak Razgatlioğlu just a few turns from the finish line. The two started the race with different tyre choices: SC2 at the front and SCX at the rear for the Turkish rider; SC1 front and SCX-A (C0900 development specification) at the rear for the Italian. Third on the podium was Álvaro Bautista (Ducati), also with the same tyre combination as his teammate and also making a comeback ride which was rewarded just a few laps from the end when he overtook Andrea Iannone (Ducati)
Giorgio Barbier, Motorcycle Racing Director
Both rear choices valid for the race
“Since yesterday, the riders had been undecided as to which rear solution to use. This can happen sometimes in the Friday sessions, because the riders and teams still need to optimise the bike setup. Then, in the race today, we saw that both the rear solutions – the standard SCX and the C0900 specification development tyre – performed similarly. On one hand, we saw that Toprak Razgatlioğlu started from pole position on the SCX and remained in the battle for first, finally achieving it on the final lap. On the other hand, the C0900 specification development SCX, at its debut in race, allowed Bulega to stay in the race lead all the way to the final turn and it even allowed his teammate Bautista to come back from fourteenth to third place. For tomorrow’s race, we may see some changes for some of the riders, whereas for the Superpole Race, we expect most of the riders to use the SCQ compound rear.”
Tyres In Action
· The WorldSBK Superpole session was extremely fast, with an amazing ten riders breaking the previous track record for the category. The best was Toprak Razgatlioğlu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team), ahead of Nicolò Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) and Andrea Iannone (Team GoEleven – Ducati). All three relied on the front SC1 – rear SCQ combination to do their best times.
· Tyre choices on the grid for Race 1 in Superbike were uncertain until just before the start. Whereas the SC1 at the front was the most popular choice, at the rear, there was a greater mixture of solutions, almost equally split between the SCX and the C0900.
· In WorldSSP, the combination preferred by the top three riders in the Superpole standings was the SC1 at the front and the SCX at the rear. In Race 1, the SC1 at the front was the common choice for all the riders with the sole exception of Öncü (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing), who chose the SC2. At the rear, choices were equally divided between the SC0 and the SCX. In Race 1, Spaniard Huertas (Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team) took his first win in the category ahead of Stefano Manzi (Pata Yamaha Ten Kate Racing) and Marcel Schroetter (MV Agusta Reparto Corse). The three riders on the podium made identical choices for the front in the race, using the SC1; at the rear, Huertas and Schroetter raced on the SCX, whereas Manzi was on the SC0.
· In the categories dedicated to young talent, the first WorldSSP300 race win of the season went to Jeffrey Buis (Freudenberg KTM-PALIGO Racing) ahead of Aldi Satya Mahendra (Team BrCorse) and Samuel Di Sora (ARCO MotoR University Team – Yamaha). In the FIM Yamaha R3 bLU cRU World Cup, Spaniard Gonzalo Sanchez Melendez (bLU cRU Yamaha Racing Spain) took the win, besting Eduardo Burr (Yamaha AD78 Team Latin America) and Marc Vich (DS Racing School) in the race finale.
