Marco Bezzecchi
Toprak Razgatlioglu failed to fully capitalise on his stellar Friday performance at the Brazilian Grand Prix as he qualified 12th. A crash in FP2 disrupted his preparations.
Razgatlioglu was fourth-fastest in the timed practice session, setting up his first Q2 appearance, but he failed to make an impression. His best time of a 1:18.412 was three-tenths slower than the next-best rider, Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia.
Having outpaced Fabio Quartararo on Friday, Razgatlioglu lost out to the 2021 world champion by nearly nine-tenths in qualifying. In fact, looking at the combined times from both sessions, only last-place man Enea Bastianini (1:18.479) posted a slower lap.
The full Q2 results in Brazil
Fabio Quartararo up in P4 while Francesco Bagnaia struggles again…
Toprak Razgatlioglu has crashed twice in as many weekends
Razgatlioglu lost control at turn four with just over five minutes to go in FP2, the same corner where Marc Marquez crashed during qualifying. It has caught out several riders this weekend.
The Turkish superstar finished joint-bottom of the World Superbikes crash leaderboard last season along with former Ducati MotoGP rider Danilo Petrucci. Both riders only fell twice.
In less than two weekends, Razgatlioglu has already matched that figure. He retired from the Thailand Sprint last time out, his first MotoGP race of any description.
Having stayed upright throughout testing, Razgatlioglu put that crash down to a technical problem.
Speaking on TNT Sports just after the incident, pundit Neil Hodgson said: “What’s incredible about that, anyone who’s watched Toprak through his career or the last five years, to watch someone ride a motorcycle so hard in every session, so committed, so out of shape at times, to only crash once [sic] a season is almost unheard of.”
Fabio Quartararo surprised himself with Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying performance
Pramac team manager Gino Borsoi says Razgatlioglu was feeling ‘so good’ on the motorcycle on Friday. He has achieved a milestone this weekend, whatever happens, but qualifying felt like a step backwards.
If the changeable conditions in practice were a leveller that allowed Razgatlioglu’s talent to come to the fore, perhaps the dry, more representative Saturday was a reality check.
It’s unclear how many more Q2 opportunities Razgatlioglu will have this season due to the well-known limitations of the Yamaha M1.
Quartararo says the bike has no strengths, so he may have been pleasantly surprised by his second-row performance, but perhaps they will struggle to sustain it in more conventional weekends.
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