Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) begun his MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship title defence with second place in the opening race of the season at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, with it appearing that he and BMW found some speed compared to Friday’s running. The #1 started from second on the grid before being made to work hard for his runner-up position in Race 1 of the Australian Round although he did finish almost five seconds down on winner Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati).

Razgatlioglu declared on Friday that the bike wasn’t ‘turning, stopping or gripping’ as he struggled to find the performance to be close to Bulega as he finished fifth in the combined classification but more than eight tenths down on the pacesetting Bulega. However, in Saturday’s Free Practice 3, ‘El Turco’ took P2 and was only two tenths behind after finding a few tenths in performance and the gap closed further again in the Tissot Superpole session.

There, the gap was just 0.094s between Bulega and Razgatlioglu as the reigning Champion used his rival as a reference to set his best lap and it paid off as he posted a 1’28.918s – the only time this weekend he’d been in the 1’28s, and only the second rider after Bulega. It set him up well for Race 1 but he lost ground at the start despite appearing to get a good start, before fighting his way back into podium contention. He ran wide at Turn 1 at the start of Lap 6 and dropped to fifth before, again, ensuring he was in the rostrum fight; pitting on Lap 10, a lap later than Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati), to change tyres and coming out around a second clear of the #19.

Despite the Spaniard closing in the final stages of Race 1, Razgatlioglu held on to take second place. Reflecting on his P2 finish, the two-time WorldSBK Champion said: “I enjoyed the flag-to-flag format, this year I didn’t make the same mistake as last year where I got the penalty. The team and I did a very good job, this year I did one more lap because I felt like I was a little faster than Bautista, I was pushing more than 100% and I went to the box later. We did a very good job, and after the pit stop, I was immediately back to pushing 100% because the race only had nine laps left and I didn’t ned to save the rear tire, it wasn’t bad.”

Although Bulega won by almost five seconds and was more than six seconds clear for the majority of the race, it looked like Razgatlioglu and BMW were closer to their Ducati rivals – although Bulega was clearly a step ahead. Part of being able to take P2 for Razgatlioglu was his starting position, which he secured after following Bulega through Superpole to set the second fastest time.

On his strategy for Saturday’s action, the Turkish superstar said: “In the Superpole, when I was following Bulega I had a very good lap time. When I saw him coming, I thought I should follow him, and in the race my strategy was to try to follow him, but when the race started, all the Ducatis passed me easily on the straight. After changing the tyre, I found a rhythm and was riding more relaxed. Every session we are taking very small steps, but tomorrow we have two more races, and we will see.”

Tune in to see if Toprak can catch Bulega this season in what’s sure to be a season closer than ever! Don’t miss a moment with the WorldSBK VideoPass!