Toprak Razgatlioglu “pushing the limit every lap” in dominant French WorldSBK treble

Although his margin to the rest of the field was huge in Magny-Cours, Toprak Razgatlioglu says he was “every lap pushing the limit” en route to another hattrick of wins at the French WorldSBK.

Winning Saturday’s Race 1 tied Razgatlioglu with Jonathan Rea on nine wins at Magny-Cours; his two Sunday wins moved him onto 11 at the French track, of course.

The first of those, the Superpole Race success, meant Razgatlioglu became a 10-time winner at Magny-Cours, making him the first rider to win 10 races at three different tracks in World Superbike – Magny-Cours coming after Donington and Most.

Razgatlioglu’s smallest winning margin at Magny-Cours came in the Superpole Race, perhaps understandably. He won by 3.7 seconds on that occasion, while his gap in the two long races over his primary title rival Nicolo Bulega was over eight seconds in each instance.

The BMW rider, though, says that he was not riding with much margin.

“It looks like we took everything, but it was not an easy weekend for me,” Toprak Razgatlioglu told WorldSBK.com after Race 2.

“Okay, we made a big gap, but also every lap I’m pushing the limit, especially I’m trying to do very strong the pace.

“But, in general, we did a very good job with my team because this is teamwork.”

The Turkish rider added that he is still not thinking about the championship, despite holding now a 39-point lead over Bulega with three rounds – and therefore nine races – remaining.

“This is my favourite track and every race I did a very good job and we made a very big gap,” he said.

“But, anyway, I’m not focused on this, I’m just focused to win the race and we did it again, we did again the hattrick.

“Now I’m focused on Aragon because Aragon is very important for me.”