Last weekend at Magny-Cours saw World Superbike enter uncharted territories when, through no fault of their own, the Superpole race actually went down to the final lap. The stunned and confused crowd didn’t know where to look as for the first time this decade the result wasn’t settled by lap four.
“Lap quatre came and I was just settling down to enjoy a batch of oeuf de grenouille whilst laughing at the Brexit deal” explained one French spectator who we reckon was called Pierre “But something felt wrong in my stomach. At first I believed it was because I’d incorrectly paired my Chateau Beychevelle with the fish course but then I noticed everyone was still watching the race. Ce qui se passe?”
Against the belief of all known multiverse predictions the second World Superbike race continued to be exciting as Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu battled to the very last lap. Eventually though it was Razgatlioglu on his Yamaha who stole the race in the final corners.
After the race Rea was keen to congratulate his Turkish rival with a host of fist pumps, hand shaking and back slapping…then he headed straight to the race officials and grassed up Toprak for exceeding track limits.
Frustratingly the WSBK officials are not known for their speedy response times as most of them use the day to catch up on some nap time. This sleepy behaviour meant the review of Rea’s protests were delayed several hours whilst the FIM stewards finished their cereal and numerous rounds of toast.
Eventually though the stewards came to an agreement that the Yamaha rider had indeed exceeded track limits on the final lap and was deducted a place giving the race win to the Kawasaki rider. By the time the news was announced however the third race had come and gone and all the teams were on their way home…but this didn’t stop the Yamaha team manager and fan of the site Paul Denning taking to twitter to vent his anger.
This penalty follows a formal protest by the Kawasaki Racing Team, we assume after forensic study of the onboard footage. Any infringement was extremely marginal & was not originally noted by Race Direction. Congratulations on your “victory” guys, well deserved… https://t.co/SRB6piGcLv
— Paul Denning (@Paul_Denning) September 5, 2021
The infringement was so small that it appeared to be a sneaky move by Kawasaki and Rea to claim back some lost points.
View the track limits infringement here:
🤏 Find out how fine margins cost @toprak_tr54 Superpole Race win!#FRAWorldSBK 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/0RWk2Z7F6X
— WorldSBK (@WorldSBK) September 5, 2021
Should Rea have been awarded the win?
Yes he should (Sponsored by Northern Ireland)
Rules are rules. You can’t be ‘slightly’ pregnant.
No he shouldn’t (Sponsored by Turkey and everywhere else really)
On board footage from Rea’s Kawasaki used to penalise Toprak shows that the Yamaha barely touched the green paint and did so as he was out of shape. Furthermore by doing so he hindered himself allowing Jonathan to pass him straight after.
What does it all mean?
Despite his annoying to spell surname we all want to see Razgatlioglu in MotoGP next year. But will this penalty help or hinder his hopes of moving?
Help
Toprak may well decide that WSBK is a bit of an amateur sport and could feel aggrieved with the penalty he was given. Given they have the best bike but only one decent rider Yamaha MotoGP would literally snap his Baklava off to sign him.
Hinder
It’s suggested that the Turkish rider has in his contract a clause stating if he wins the WSBK title he’ll get a free pass to MotoGP. Docking him points therefore will only serve to lower his chances of winning and therefore moving.
Added to that MotoGP knows a thing or two about penalising riders for track limit offenses – maybe Toprak will just choose to stay where he is?