It could’ve hardly been a better comeback for Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) as he finished second in the combined classification on Friday at MotorLand Aragon. Making his MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship return from injury, Razgatlioglu secured P1 in the morning Free Practice 1 session and it looked like his time from the morning would be good enough to claim Friday honours, before he was demoted by stablemate Garrett Gerloff (Bonovo Action BMW) by just 0.004s.

TOPRAK’S FRIDAY: a long run in FP2, second overall

In Free Practice 1, Razgatlioglu’s plan was to do as many laps as he felt comfortable with and ‘El Turco’ completed 14, the second fewest on the grid. He put on a fresh tyre right at the end of the session to set a 1’49.021s with Razgatlioglu completing three stints in total. His first stint was five laps long, while his second stint was two laps longer. The final stint was just a single lap as he set his fastest time of the day.

In the afternoon Free Practice 2 session, Razgatlioglu completed 20 laps which was comparable to his rivals. In FP2, the 2021 Champion completed two stints. The first was just four laps long before the red flag, and his final stint of the day featured 12 representative laps. His fastest session of FP2 was a 1’49.673s which came in the middle of his last stint as he looked at completing a long run ahead of the racing action at Aragon.

An elated Razgatlioglu, when asked what his feeling was to be back on track and reviewing his Friday, said: “The feeling is amazing. I’ve never won at this track. I’m just trying to win this weekend, which isn’t easy! The new surface has good grip, and the tyres don’t look like they have a big drop. Today I did a race simulation, 14 laps and no more because after four weeks without training, physically I’m good but not like before. The feeling is good on the bike. I’m a little bit tired but I think I’ll feel much better tomorrow because this is just the first day. The bike feels like it has less turning but the grip is not bad, the turning and stopping is a little bit less. Tomorrow, I hope we improve the bike and start stronger.”

FITNESS UPDATE: “I’m very lucky but a little bit tired, especially the muscles…”

Aragon marks the Turkish superstar’s first round since his Magny-Cours crash where he suffered from a mild traumatic pneumothorax. He was reassessed after Free Practice 1 and declared fit for the remainder of the weekend as he looks to maintain his title lead against Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati). The Ducati rider now sits just 13 points behind Razgatlioglu with three rounds to go.

Razgatlioglu spoke about his aims at Aragon, saying: “I hope I’m fighting with Alvaro at the front because it looks like Alvaro is very strong. I hope I win because I’ve never won here, this is my target. I’m very lucky but a little bit tired, especially the muscles. I don’t have arm pump, this is good. I’m feeling it in my shoulder but after three weeks, this is normal. I think I’ll feel much better tomorrow because today is just the first day. I hope we improve the bike tomorrow. Superpole is just one lap, but the race is very important, I’m just focused on that. I hope we’re fighting for the win.”

BONGER’S VIEW: “We want to walk away with considerable points and not lose the Championship lead…”

BMW Motorrad Motorsport Sporting Director Marc Bongers spoke from the pitlane during Free Practice 1 about Razgatlioglu’s first thoughts on the bike while he was also asked about the manufacturer’s goals for the weekend with the record holder for consecutive WorldSBK wins back on the bike.

Explaining BMW’s targets for the weekend, Bongers was keen to not heap too much pressure on Razgatlioglu and said: “I think it's too early to say, first of all we are just extremely pleased he is running here too early to give any reviews of what we can achieve but we want to walk away with considerable points and not lose the Championship lead.”

MUIR SAYS: “He’s feeling pretty okay so let’s just keep pushing forwards”

Team Principal Shaun Muir added his thoughts while speaking during Free Practice 2, discussing how Razgatlioglu felt after FP1 and reiterated the goal of not losing more points to Bulega. Muir said: “He is reasonably okay; he ran most of the session with an SC0 on the rear and he chose to put a development tyre in with 3 or 4 minutes to go and he put a really strong time in. At the moment he is feeling pretty okay so let's just keep pushing forwards. He is just getting back down to business, isn't he? We don't want to lose any more points to Nicolo Bulega, we know this is a circuit where those guys are going to be really strong, so we need to conserve as many points as possible coming out of Aragon.”

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