TOPRAK LEADS THE WAY IN WORLD SUPERBIKES

WORDS AND IMAGES: NICK EDARDS HALF LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHIC

AT THE TIME OF writing, we’re now five rounds into FIM World Superbike Championship (aka WorldSBK) 2024 and by the time you read this, round Six will have been run which marks the midpoint of the twelveround series.

Since the last edition of AMM, Round Four, the Pirelli Emilia-Romagna Round at Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli” and Round Five, the Prosecco DOC UK Round at Donington Park have been run and a much clearer picture is emerging of who is and who isn’t performing.

Toprak Razgatlioglu’s switch to the factory BMW Motorrad Motorsport WorldSBK team at the start of the season was seen by many as a huge mistake for him simply because the BMW M1000RR had not, and was not expected to, deliver results that would see Razgatlioglu as a podium finisher let alone a realistic championship challenger. If anyone told Toprak that he was going to spend the season mired, at best, in the midfield, he wasn’t listening as his performances, and those of the bike just keep getting better. Both Rounds Four and Five were clean-sweeps with the young Turk winning all six races, two full length and one sprint race at each round. Following his Race Two victory at Assen’s Round Three that makes seven wins in a row and a forty-one point lead over Aruba.it

Ducati’s Nicolo Bulega, heading to Round Six.

BMW are, as you’d expect, delighted because winning the championship now looks like a real possibility but there may be clouds on the horizon. There are strong rumours that Toprak is courting MotoGP teams for a ride in 2025, which would mean breaking his contract with BMW in WorldSBK. Toprak’s manager, multiple World Supersport champion Kenan Sofuoğlu has all but confirmed that the right offer from MotoGP could see Razgatlioglu bail on the BMW team at the end of 2024 although it’s unclear how he could score a competitive ride in that series given the top seats are already filled. But if the move did eventuate perhaps there would be fewer hard feelings from the BMW camp If he landed them the championship before he walked away. Whatever the outcome, this story has some way to go before we find out how it ends.

Whilst on the subject of BMW’s presence in WorldSBK, Michael Van der Mark signed on for another year with the factory team and whilst he’s not quite setting the track on fire the way Toprak is, VdM is delivering regular points for the team and currently sits ninth in the table.

But it’s not all positive vibes in the BMW ranks as Bonovo Action, also running factory spec bikes announced that it would exit WorldSBK at the end

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Bottom of the 2024 season which potentially puts Scott Redding and Garrett Gerloff on the market and looking for seats in 2025. Redding is contracted to BMW for 2025 and the Bonovo exit was as much a surprise to BMW HQ as it was to everyone else, so we’ll have to wait and see if BMW is able to field a second-team next season.

The oft-maligned Brit had another poor outing at Misano scoring only five points, but he finally found some form at Donington and was desperately unlucky to have a mechanical DNF whilst running strongly in Race One. He backed that performance up with two fourth-place finishes in both Tissot Superpole and Race Two demonstrating that he’s far from a spent force. Hopefully he can build on those results and deliver more strong performances as the season progresses into its second-half. Gerloff, Redding’s teammate continues to struggle to make the top-ten in any race which is a shame as he’s a talented rider.

In the factory Aruba.it Ducati stable, it was Nicolo Bulega who held sway at both Misano and Donington, outscoring his more experienced teammate at both rounds, results that see Bulega fourteen-points in front of Bautista heading to the Czech round. Bulega has outscored Bautista at every round in 2024 apart from Assen and Bautista throwing the Ducati down the road in the Misano Tissot Superpole race cost him points he couldn’t afford. Crashing out on the sighting lap before Race Two at Donington didn’t help his cause either but the team was able to fix up the damage on the grid and Bautista settled himself enough to bring it home in fifth place. One big problem for Bautista has been qualifying. His race pace has often been on par with the front runners but starting tenth on the grid as he did at Donington with Toprak on pole creates another level of challenge as he strives to win his third consecutive WorldSBK Championship. Bautista seems less comfortable this year, possibly because Toprak and Bulega are putting more pressure on him and possibly because of changes in the bike’s dynamic with the ballast he has to carry to make minimum weight. Either way, Baustista is making mistakes that he wasn’t making when he was the far and away the dominant force in 2022 and 2023. Regardless, there’s clearly still a lot of fight left in the diminutive Spaniard and whilst he’s fifty-five points behind Toprak, there’s still plenty to play for and we know just how unpredictable WorldSBK can be.

In the Kawasaki camp Alex Lowes continues to be competitive and consistent. Whilst he’s too far back from Toprak to be a realistic championship contender, his Donington results narrowed the gap between himself, in fourth, and Baustista, in third on the championship table to twenty-one points. This is the best season we’ve seen from Lowes in quite a while and a remarkable turn-around from the last few seasons when he’s rarely been in the frame for podium finishes. Lowes’ teammate Axel Bassani in his first season with

KRT hasn’t yet come to grips with the Kawasaki. Misano was his best round to-date but Donington was another disappointment with a best finish of tenth in Race Two to see him sitting in twelfth in the series points heading to Round Six.

To call season 2024 a mixed-bag for Yamaha is an understatement. Locatelli has been dependable, scoring points regularly and placing fifth in the series coming away from Donington, some way adrift of Alex Lowes in fourth. Perhaps the most positive news for the team is that Jonathan Rea is finally starting to gel with the R1M. Sixth in Race One at Assen and fifth in the Superpole race were encouraging but a fall in Race Two, and a nineteenth-place finish after remounting was a disappointing end to the weekend.

Left: Jonathan Rea.

Bottom left: Andrea Iannone.

Right: Remy Gardner.

Bottom right: Danilo Petrucci.

But it was Donington where Rea finally tasted champagne with an excellent third place in the Superpole sprint race. His early season struggles see him way back in eleventh spot on the table leaving Donington but it’s clear that he’s not giving up and let’s hope that he continues to improve as the second half of the season looms large.

GRT Yamaha men Remy Gardner and Dominique Aegerter are still ahead of Rea on points. Gardner had an excellent outing at Assen scoring his first, and very well-deserved, WorldSBK podium with a third place in Race Two. This isn’t likely to be his last visit to the podium this season but, disappointingly, good qualifying pace at Donington didn’t translate into the race results that he would’ve liked.

Of the independent riders, Andrea Iannone hasn’t been able to maintain his stunning early season form and he’s dropped away from being a regular podium contender. He has enough selfbelief to think that he’s good enough for a factory ride in WorldSBK or even possibly a switch to MotoGP but he’s going to need to rediscover his early season form for those to be realistic aspirations. Bautista has yet to make his intentions for 2025 clear and if he did retire, perhaps Iannone would be a strong contender to take the vacant seat if it’s available but he’s going to need to start putting together the sort of results we saw at the start of the season or a factory seat is unlikely to come his way.

Iannone’s primary adversary in the chase for top independent rider was Danilo Petrucci who had been performing admirably on the Barni Park Racing Ducati in the early rounds but lost ground in the series after having to miss Assen as a result of the quite serious injuries he sustained in an MX accident. Petrucci returned to the field of play at Misano, an early return which had a lot of people wondering if he was really ready for it. Petrucci was one of those left wondering and by the time the first race came around, his goal was simply to finish. Not surprising then that three top-ten finishes with a best of sixth in the second full length race was seen by the paddock and spectators alike as an absolutely heroic effort. Coming away from Misano, Petrucci trailed Iannone by just seventeen points and in ninth place in the standings.

Respect. So much determination from one of the nicest guys in the paddock. He backed up his Misano performances at Donington with another three top ten finishes and a best of sixth in Race Two to narrow the gap between him and Iannone to just three points.

Honda, well they’re still in the game but with Vierge and Lecuona falling back to sixteenth and nineteenth respectively after Round Five, there’s not much happening of note there.

Round Six of WorldSBK is up next at Autodrom Most in the Czech Republic over the weekend of 19th-21st July. The Portuguese round takes place early August and then French, Italian and Spanish rounds make September a gala of WorldSBK action with the final two rounds taking place in October.

Toprak Razgatlioglu continues to demonstrate just how talented he is. Impressive early-season performances on what was assumed to be a bike with little potential has now turned into an almost unbeatable package. In all three races at Donington, he settled himself in the early laps, made the pass to take the lead and then basically just disappeared into the distance. It does mean that the excitement is in the midfield rather than that the front of the race but no one can fail to be impressed at just how good Toprak and BMW have become in such a short space of time. But with seven Rounds left to run, nothing is certain yet.