Australia WorldSBK: Toprak: Pit stop mishap cost 5 seconds - 'that's racing'

Toprak Razgatlioglu was among the early leaders of Saturday’s wet-dry opening race at the Phillip Island WorldSBK finale.
Toprak Razgatlioglu Australian WorldSBK, 19 November
Toprak Razgatlioglu Australian WorldSBK, 19 November

After playing catchup to tཧhe likes of Kawasaki and Ducati’s newly crowned Alvaro Bautista in free practice and qualifying, the 2021 world champion began the soaking wet opening laps from fourth onཧ the grid.

The Pata Yamaha rider fought his way through to lead by lap 5 of 22 and was right behind Jonathan Rea when the pair both dived into the pit🙈s for slicks on lap 10.

While the timing proved correct, allowing Rea and Razgatlioglu to g🃏ain a comfortable advantage over the late-stopping Alex Lowes andꦓ Bautista, an issue when fitting the slick front tyre cost Razgatlioglu five seconds.

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That allowed Rea to es🥃cape and the British star went on to claim a 6.2s vict🌜ory.

"This weekend didn't🀅 have a good start but anyway my team was working to have a better bike. Now I'm happy. We finished the race on the podium,” Razgatlioglu said.

“It was a strange race for me. It was my first race ജlike this. I felt too much spinning on the [wet] rear and after I was not pushing on the tyre. I saw that Jonny was also not pushin♓g.

Toprak Razgatlioglu , Race 1, Australian WorldSBK, 19 November
Toprak Razgatlioglu , Race 1, Australian WorldSBK, 19 November

“Then I saw he entered to the box and I followed him directly. My team made a small mistake during the pit stop, they struggled to put the front💙 tyre so we lost almost fꦺive seconds.

“But anyway, this is racing, this is motorsport. We tried our best. ಌWe are here, in second place. Now I'm looking f𝕴orward to tomorrow.”

By only losing five points to Rea, Razgatlioglu still holds a comfortable 32-point advantage over the Kawasaki ride🐟r in their fight for title runner-up.

Meanwhile, Razgatlioglu and Bautista will go into Sunda🍃y’s final two races still tied on 14 wins for the season.

Andrea Locatelli , Race 1, Australian WorldSBK, 19 November
Andrea Locatelli , Race 1, Australian WorldSBK, 19 November

Team-mate Andrea Locatelli claimed fourth place, for the third race in a row, crossing the line 2.9s behind Lowes 🍌after overtaking Bautista in the closing stages.

"Today was a fun race for the fans and for us because to stop to have a flag-to-flag was interesting,” Locatelli said. “In the end we got fourth po𝔍sition so I tꩵhink we can be happy. It's a good result.

“I was fighting with Alex until the end [to] maybe finish in third position. My team did a really good j🌌ob for the flag-to-flag, so I want to thank them. I'm really happy about today and about this race.

“We'll try again tomorrow, and we'll try to improve to✅ try to stay closer to the front because we want to try to get a podium. ღThis is the target.”

Garrett Gerloff Australian WorldSBK, 18 November
Garrett Gerloff Australian WorldSBK, 18 November

GRT’s G𒐪arrett Gerloff made it three Yamahas in the top six.

"Complicated is the right word to describe this race,” said the American. “It was raining really hard after the Superpole session. I honestly didn't think that it was going to be a dry race at all. But th🌞en, we were sitting on the grid, the sun came out and the wind was hard. I was thinking 'alright this is going to dry' and it did pretty quickly.

“In the race, I made a decent start and it didn't feel too bad in the rain but honestly, I didn't feel too fantastic either and I lost some ground. But staying around sixth, seventh place and then when the track started to dry, I was feeling pretty good, expect that I wasn't really sure about when I should come i🔜n, because there were still a couple of places on the track that were pretty wet.

“I probably waited a lap longer than I should have. I saw Locatelli in front of me, he was with Bautista maybe, I saw him going into the pit and I was thinking like 'do I do it or not' but on the grid, I told my guys that I was going give them a signal before I come in so, I never gave them the signal so I didn't want t♛o catch them out.

“Anyway, they would have been ready, but I decided to do one more lap, giving them the signal so they were properly re෴ady and in the end it was good."

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