Marco Bezzecchi
Toprak Razgatlioglu scored his best result as a MotoGP rider on Sunday when he finished 11th at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Razgatlioglu had only bagged points twice in his first seven starts, peaking with a P13 finish at Le Mans. But his Balaton Park result more than doubles his tally.
Razgatlioglu had targeted the top 10 in Hungary after winning all three World Superbikes at this venue in 2025, but he lost out to KTM’s Brad Binder by half a second.
If Toprak Razgatlioglu wins a MotoGP title, where he would rank among the motorcycle racing greats?
He already has three World Superbike crowns
Toprak Razgatlioglu’s ‘motivation’ comments aren’t helping anyone at Pramac Yamaha
Razgatlioglu’s result represented a commendable recovery from a disappointing qualifying (P18), even if he was helped by the turn-one crash involving the two Aprilia riders, Raul Fernandez and Fermin Aldeguer.
Speaking to outlets including Speedweek after qualifying, Razgatlioglu said he expected to set a mid 1:37, which would have seen him through to Q2, but only managed a 1:38.0.
“My motivation immediately plummeted,” he said. “For Yamaha, this is a disaster.”
For Razgatlioglu, this loss of ‘motivation’ has been a consistent theme since moving from WSBK to MotoGP.
Even in December last year, when he’d barely tested the bike, Razgatlioglu admitted it would be ‘difficult’ to target the final points spot in 15th. The three-time WSBK champion was used to dominating race weekends.
Here’s our rider ratings for the Hungarian Grand Prix! Which ones would you change?
Sure enough, when the extent of Yamaha’s problems emerged in pre-season, it served as a brutal reality check.
“I think I’m getting to the mid-57s, but I pass 59,” he said in Malaysia in February. “Do you know what then happens automatically? You just crash. Your motivation drops. Because my expectation is different from the times you see as two seconds slower. Seeing that really drops my motivation.”
And then, after spurning his first Q2 appearance by dropping to 18th in the Brazil Sprint, Razgatlioglu was ‘really down’.
“When everything went wrong, my motivation dropped a lot, because after Friday I was expecting a much better weekend,” he said.
On one level, Razgatlioglu’s honesty in the media should be welcomed. It was always going to be a challenge to swap a title-winning bike for the slowest machinery on the grid.
But the Turkish rider knew what he was getting into when he made the decision. Yamaha were always treating 2026 as a development year after switching to a V4 engine.
If a team feels their rider lacks ‘motivation’, then that will naturally damage morale, and that’s what the bosses at Yamaha and Pramac must tell Razgatlioglu.
He has had enough time to recalibrate his expectations. It’s time for him to embrace the struggle that he signed up for in the hope of returning to the right end of the grid in 2027.
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