‘Riding a rental bike’ - Toprak Razgatlioglu details Misano MotoGP struggles
Toprak Razgatlioglu details his struggles riding his Yamaha at Misano
Pramac’s Toprak Razgatlioglu says his Yamaha feels like “a rental bike” when he uses soft MotoGP tyres at Misano, which is leading him to ride “Superbike style”.
The three-time World Superbike champion was expected to have a better weekend at the San Marino Grand Prix, owing to his experience of the Misano circuit.
But the Turkish rider has struggled for pace, ending Friday 0.5s slower than Pramac team-mate Jack Miller, while qualifying over 0.7s slower than Yamaha stablemate Alex Rins at the back of the field on Saturday morning.
Speaking on Friday, Razgatlioglu said his feeling on medium rubber was good, but as soon as he switched to the soft tyre “it looks like it’s not my bike”.
“When I try the first soft tyre, I'm surprised because it looks like it's not my bike,” he began.
“It looks like I'm riding a rental bike. And I try to ride, try to adapt to this tyre style, because the bike is not stopping; it’s just going wide.
“The biggest problem is the bike not stopping. When I'm not stopping, I'm not able to turn the corner, I’m just stopping more, and I'm riding like a superbike style because the bike is not stopping with the soft tyre.
“We are pushing the front, and also I'm not using the rear tyre.
“Normally with soft tyre you are always using the exit, but I'm not able to enter the corner. I'm just losing the line. And on exit, it doesn't change.
“We are talking with the team. We don't know this problem. Why? Because we try to improve.
“But now it looks like we have more grip here. This is good. But the problem is the bike not stopping.
“I'm really surprised, because I have a good motivation, because the first time this season I did the best FP1, and I'm very positive this time.
“I feel really good. But just some corners I need to improve for the good lap time, because with medium tyre today, at the end of the session I did my best lap.
“I did this lap time with used tyres. Normally, when I put the soft tyre I'm expecting 1m31s. But in the end I see only 32.0. That is very strange. I don't understand anything.”
