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It was a bitter end to Toprak Razgatlioglu’s (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with the reigning World Champion suffering an enormous highside on the exit of Turn 5. Coming just half an hour before he was meant to finish, Razgatlioglu was taken to the medical centre first before being transported to hospital for further examination. Thankfully, the #1 Yamaha rider was back at the track in the evening and with his elbow bandaged up for a deep wound, was his usual charismatic self.

Giving an update on how the crash happened, Razgatlioglu detailed: “Out of Turn 5, I shifted to second gear and had a big highside, but anyway I am OK. My elbow has some big damage but it’s OK, not a problem to ride the bike. It’s not broken, so this is good and we will be able to race at Magny-Cours. I think for one week, I keep it in the bandage like now and it should be a fast recovery. In 2020, I did the same on the right side during the save at Jerez, but the next week, I rode because we had a race in Portimao, so it’s not a problem!

“Normally, we wouldn’t come to this test but after Most, I pushed the team to come to this test because five weeks is a long break and I need to ride the bike. We didn’t have many SCX or SCQ tyres, we just used the SCX and the other rear race tyres. We have a good set-up for this track as it’s a bit difficult for Yamaha. We worked for rear grip, and we improve it a little bit; we are not further up as we didn’t use the SCQ tyre. I’m not looking at lap times; OK, we are not fast, and this is not good for me, but I’ll be working for the weekend here.”

Pirelli also brought a new front tyre to the test, which many teams described as an SCQ-style front tyre, something Razgatlioglu tried on the second day before his crash: “I tried it over six or seven laps and it’s good, but then it starts to drop. Anyway, like the SCQ tyre, it works well and gives a lot of grip, so in general I like it.”

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