Petrucci reveals the puzzle of the BMW inherited from Toprak: “Here’s why we’re not fast”

Danilo Petrucci ended the Estoril weekend without scoring any points, and his analysis goes beyond a single round: the BMW he rides was shaped around an extraordinary rider, Toprak Razgatlioglu. The Umbrian rider himself explained to Speedweek why his style does not suit the M 1000 RR.

The contrast with his teammate is stark. Miguel Oliveira, racing on home soil, finished fourth in Race 1 and the Sprint, missing out on a podium in the shorter race by just over a tenth of a second. These were the German manufacturer’s best results since both riders suffered serious injuries in May. Petrucci, by contrast, spent the entire weekend well away from the points-paying positions.

"Estoril was pretty difficult. I didn’t expect us to have such big problems in the race," Petrucci admitted. "Qualifying wasn’t bad at all; we were fairly close to the top 10. Since we had nothing to lose, we tried a few things on Saturday. I can’t brake the bike the way I’d like, and it lacks front-end turn-in. If I’m good under braking, I can’t turn in—or vice versa."

The experiments did not produce the hoped-for results, but they did lead to a discovery: over the course of the season, work on the bike had gone in the opposite direction to the one Toprak had chosen the previous year. "Toprak leaned heavily in one direction so he could brake the bike as effectively as possible. But that doesn’t suit my riding style; I prefer to be smoother and carry more speed through the corners. With this bike, you can only have one thing: good braking or good corner speed. Over the course of the season, I lost both."

The Turk’s record with BMW shows the weight of his legacy: in 66 races with the German manufacturer, he stood on the podium 58 times and won 39. In Munich, they have long known they need a bike that is fast for everyone, not just Toprak, and they have made some progress: at certain tracks, Oliveira has outperformed the Turk’s results from the previous year, both in qualifying and over race distance.

Petrucci, meanwhile, was told "from day one" to ride more like Toprak. Oliveira’s strong results on his own terms reassure him: "And he doesn’t take any inspiration at all from Toprak’s riding style." While acknowledging that the Turk had been faster than the Portuguese rider at Estoril, the Umbrian tried to explain why.

According to Petrucci, the point is that Toprak’s talent lay precisely in that extreme braking, something difficult for anyone else to replicate. His conclusion is cutting: "Take away a rider’s secret weapon, and he becomes an ordinary rider."

Estoril was the penultimate round of the Superbike season, leaving Petrucci with one last chance to find a compromise on a bike built around a rider very different from him.

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