Estoril. Toprak Razgatlioglu (TUR) is firmly back in winning ways. At the penultimate round of the 2024 FIM Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) at Estoril, Portugal, he secured a dominant pole position and won both main races by a wide margin with his ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team’s BMW M 1000 RR. This brings him one step closer to the World Championship title. Only in the Superpole race did he narrowly miss victory, finishing second by just 0.003 seconds behind championship rival Nicolo Bulega (ITA / Ducati) – the closest finish in the 35-year history of WorldSBK. Razgatlioglu now heads into the season finale next weekend (18th to 20th October) at Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, with a 46-point lead. A total of 62 points are still up for grabs.
His teammate Michael van der Mark (NED) secured a place in the second row in Superpole, with his best race result being a hard-fought fifth place in Sunday’s second main race.
For the Bonovo action BMW Racing Team, Garrett Gerloff (USA) and Scott Redding (GBR) fought their way forward after a difficult Superpole session. Gerloff stormed to a sixth-place finish in the first main race, while Redding climbed from 19th on the grid in the Superpole race to finish in the top ten.
Reactions after the Estoril round.
Sven Blusch, Head of BMW Motorrad Motorsport: “This weekend, we made a huge step toward the title. I’m incredibly proud of the entire team. You can feel that the pressure is building, and the team has done an outstanding job. On Toprak’s side, they remained calm, approaching each race with a lot of focus. Toprak rode extremely smartly. He had the championship in mind but kept pushing. For Mickey, it was a very tough and emotional weekend. He fought his way through the weekend very well and finished with a well-deserved top-five result. We are very proud of him. At the Bonovo action BMW Racing Team, it was really unfortunate that Garrett had to retire in the last race. He was on his way to a top-five finish as well. On Scott’s side, we saw small steps in the right direction. He had a great Superpole race, where he secured a top-ten finish. I think we can head to Jerez with a lot of confidence now. We are excited for the season finale!”
Toprak Razgatlioglu, ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team (SP: 1 / R01: 1 / SP Race: 2 / R02: 1): “I am really happy today, especially with race two. We did not manage three wins this weekend, but almost, as it was very close in the Superpole race. There, I also used the race tyre because I thought that the Q tyre would drop at the end. I had incredible pace with the race tyre but when I saw the chequered flag I had lost the race. I was surprised that the Q tyre didn’t drop while my tyre started to spin a lot. Nicolo had a big advantage in the last corner and I kept fighting and it was very close. But we got good points for the championship and I won both long races. They are always more difficult because you need to manage the tyre and your pace. I did a very good job. To get the wins again after the big injury is really good for me and now we will see what happens at Jerez. I am pretty relaxed because I have a good points lead. I will just try to enjoy Jerez. I am not feeling stressed because I just need good results there. I don’t need to win at Jerez – and maybe I will win there, too. I know that Ducati is very strong there but we improved a lot after the test and I am ready to fight. if I just need a second position in the last race, that’s okay but I am focusing on winning again.”
Michael van der Mark, ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team (SP: 6 / R01: 7 / SP Race: 13 / R02: 5): “It has been of course a difficult weekend after what happened this week. I want to thank the entire team and BMW for supporting me because it was tough but there was no pressure from them. I wanted to ride. Friday was a day to forget but yesterday was not so bad. In Superpole, I had a good feeling and I scored some good points in race one. But it was a difficult long race and I didn’t feel fantastic. The in today’s Superpole race, I didn’t have a good feeling at all. I tried really hard but it just didn’t work. So for race two it was about to calm down a bit and starting from P11 I managed to have a good start and a good race. I had a strong pace, it was a nice and long battle, especially at the end with Andrea Iannone. We are fighting for sixth in the championship so I really wanted to stay in front of him. The bike felt really good and it was nice to finish fifth in race two. Now I think everyone can’t wait to go to Jerez and to have a fantastic weekend there after we have seen what Toprak did this weekend, being pretty close to the ultimate dream of BMW, and I’ll be ready to support him as much as I can.”
Garrett Gerloff, Bonovo action BMW Racing Team (SP: 17 / R01: 6 / SP Race: 11 / R02: DNF): “It has been a bit of a disappointing day today. I tried to do my best again to get into the top nine in the Superpole race to give me a better start position for the race two. I had a good race with Scott and Michael but in the end none of us finished in the top nine so I had to start from the back again. I had a really good start, I felt really good but then had a technical problem and wasn’t able to finish the race. It was unfortunate because I think it could have been a good day pointswise. But anyway, I only have a couple of days to prepare for the next one and I feel good.”
Scott Redding, Bonovo action BMW Racing Team (SP: 19 / R01: 12 / SP Race: 10 / R02: 11): “Sunday was not so bad, honestly. This morning in warm up, we had miserable track conditions so I just did an outlap and a start. The Superpole race was okay. I felt that I had good speed to get into the top ten. We were fighting a lot, especially over the last few laps. It was really nice so I enjoyed this race. In race two I pushed again to try to finish in the top ten. I didn’t feel as good as in the Superpole race but I felt a lot better than on the other days. I was fighting and in the middle of the race I had some good rhythm but then I destroyed the rear tyre a bit so the last corner was really taking a lot of my lap time away. But I’m reasonably happy because the beginning of the weekend was quite difficult and now we salvaged a better weekend.”