Bautista: “Toprak never made mistakes, his performance was unbelievable”

Alvaro Bautista says he was pushed harder than ever before during his 2023 WorldSBK title fight with Toprak Razgatlioglu.

Robert Jones

17 Dec 2023

Alvaro Bautista, Ducati WorldSBK Jerez 2023

Bautista secured a record win total this season as he won ten races more than six-time WorldSBK champion Jonathan Rea managed in both 2018 and 2019.

The factory Ducati rider was more dominant than ever when it came to defending his title, but that didin’t stop the title fight from going down to the wire.

Razgatlioglu, who was equally impressive at times, despite only winning 6 races throughout the year, pushed Bautista until the season-finale at Jerez.

Although winning the title was never in doubt during his home round, Bautista finished the year amazed by the performances Razgatlioglu delivered.

“My fight for the championship with Toprak this season has been difficult, especially in the second half of the season,” said Bautista when talking to WorldSBK.com.

“Toprak was very strong. He never made mistakes. I had a record of victories this season but, even with this, he kept the title alive until the last round.

“That means his performance was unbelievable. When you fight with him for the championship, you can’t say ‘okay, today I’m second, I get some points’ because he’s always there. For that, I had to do the whole season by attacking.

“Doing my best, never relaxing and always on the limit. Portimao, especially Race 2, I said to everybody that I didn’t want to think about the championship, I just wanted to fight until the end and get the maximum.

“For me, it was easy just to stay second and not risk anything. It is not my mindset. When you win and your rivals have the talent they have, it’s more important to win like this. I’m so proud of how I managed the situation and the races.”

Bautista was mistake-free until round seven when he crashed out of Race 2 at Imola.

And although more mistakes followed at Magny-Cours and Aragon, Bautista was strong enough to retain his title.

Bautista added: “From Imola, I learnt a lot. Maybe I had more tension than normal. I don’t know if it was because the weather was too hot or the track conditions.

“I think I crashed because of that. I didn’t have a good appreciation of the reality and maybe, in that corner, I touched the inside kerb and then I crashed.

“It was my mistake but fortunately I learnt from it. Aragon was a bit different from Imola. In that crash, I was too confident.

“I had a bit of a gap to second and maybe I was too relaxed. The second one was because I tried to gain two positions in one corner. I could expect that crash because I was over the limit.”