BMW deliver "50-50" verdict for Toprak Razgatlioglu at Italian WorldSBK

Off the back of a difficult weekend at Assen, BMW and Toprak Razgatlioglu need a rebound at this weekend’s Italian WorldSBK, but the Team Principal of the German brand’s factory team, Shaun Muir, says the Italian layout is not guaranteed to suit the M1000 RR.

The key issue for Razgatlioglu and BMW in Assen was tyre degradation, with both the reigning champion and his teammate, Michael van der Mark, suffering multiple seconds per lap of fall-off in the final part of both long races in the Netherlands.

Muir said that the Cremona layout shouldn’t be as demanding on tyres as the Dutch venue World Superbike visited three weeks ago, but added that the high track temperatures expected this weekend in northern Italy are likely to work against the M1000 RR.

BMW verdict on Toprak Razgatlioglu at Cremona

“I think the circuit isn’t as demanding on the tyres as we knew that Assen and Phillip Island would be,” Muir told the WorldSBK international TV feed during FP1 at Cremona Circuit.

“The overall position or feeling at the moment is that we’re still working with the package that we’ve inherited and that needs to improve week-in-week-out.

“I think we can almost pinpoint which circuits we’re going to be strong at and which ones we’re going to struggle at, so this [Cremona] is kind of a 50/50 one for us.

“We know the fast, flowing corners that were hurting us at Assen aren’t the same here; equally we’ve got very high track temperatures here that are going to hurt us.

“It’s a moving target, we’ve just got to work on that race strategy that gives us good tyre life over the entire 23-lap race.”

Despite the uncertainty around the BMW’s suitability to the layout at Cremona and Razgatlioglu’s inexperience there – having not raced at Cremona last year due to injury – Muir said that the reigning champion is targeting race wins.

“[Toprak] wants race victories, but equally we’ve got to have one eye on the championship because it’s a long game,” Muir said.

“For us, taking points away from Nicolo [Bulega] is the end goal leaving here on Sunday night. Reducing that margin down has got to be the goal, if we get the top step along the way then that’s going to be fantastic.

“Clearly, we can see that the Ducatis are strong here, we know that Danilo [Petrucci] walked away with [three] wins last year, [...] but also that Nicolo Bulega’s grown up in the [time since] he was here last.

“I think there’ll be a few other riders in the mix there: I think Sam’s [Lowes] carrying some of that form forwards that he had in Assen.

“But we’ll work on our own strategy, ignore the others, and see where the day brings us.”