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

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