Toprak Razgatlioglu on his debut: regret over the crash, but his race pace is surprising

A pity about the slip, but Toprak Razgatlioglu’s first (mini) MotoGP race was very interesting: here’s why.

A crash 2-3 laps from the end hurt the final result, but there are some interesting signs. We’re talking about Toprak Razgatlioglu, who in his very first MotoGP race, albeit a Sprint (soft-soft tires for everyone), crossed the finish line in 20th place. What was only briefly seen (the cameras were focused on the Acosta-Marquez duel) is that the triple WorldSBK champion and Pramac Yamaha rookie had a low-side after losing the front, an issue he’d already admitted during testing, with only a few laps to go before the checkered flag. A shame, considering he was in line with the other Yamaha riders—indeed, his average pace was actually the best!

Beyond the trail of controversy left by a penalty for Marquez that split the MotoGP paddock, it’s also worth highlighting how the first outing went for the super rookie from Turkey, who is facing a tougher challenge than Moreira since he truly came from another world. Yamaha is also in its worst moment, and the other three riders are in serious trouble... Toprak Razgatlioglu started 20th after Q1 held in the Thai morning, night in Italy, and clearly without expectations other than learning as much as possible to continue his (long) apprenticeship.

He did, however, get a lightning start and we found him immediately in 15th place, behind his garage mate Jack Miller, whom he studied closely for the entire race. He stayed steadily ahead of both Alex Rins in 16th and Fabio Quartararo in 19th... That is, until two laps from the end, when a slide at Turn 12 complicated things: Razgatlioglu rejoined, but there wasn’t much time left to climb back up and he finished the race in P20, where he’d started, with Quartararo eventually 16th and Rins 18th. Tomorrow will be his first long race: in the meantime, we can take a look at his pace during this Sprint and say that, compared to his Yamaha colleagues, it’s already very interesting.

We looked at the lap time references set by the quartet from the tuning-fork factory (for now, given all the difficulties, we can’t compare them to other manufacturers) and tried to find an average, clearly considering only the laps recorded before the former Superbike rider’s crash. The result is surprising: Toprak Razgatlioglu had the fastest race pace among the Yamaha riders with an average time of 1:31.341, a best lap of 1:31.104, and a highest lap of 1:31.568. Let’s look at the others, starting with Jack Miller, who recorded an average pace of 1:31.350, with a best lap of 1:31.190 and the highest times at the end in 1:31.6 (we’re only considering the first 10 laps for a proper comparison with Razgatlioglu).

Now over to the factory team: starting with Alex Rins, with an average pace of 1:31.365, a fastest lap of 1:31.005—so the best single lap among the four Yamaha riders—and a highest time of 1:31.5. Finally, here’s Fabio Quartararo, who settled at 1:31.5 for average pace, ranging from a best of 1:31.144 to a 1:32.131 on lap 10 (then hammering out 1:31.7s over the last three laps). We’re talking about the very first MotoGP race, a short one, and he’s recently tested on this track, so it’s just an initial analysis, but not a bad starting point. The strategy will need to change from today’s 13 laps to the 26 laps MotoGP riders will tackle tomorrow—it’ll be interesting to see how he does in his first long race as well.

The time analysis at this link