Why Toprak Razgatlioglu was "bored" during WorldSBK title years
Toprak Razgatlioglu says WorldSBK needs at least three more races per season and that he was “bored” in his last two seasons there.
WorldSBK’s 12-round season is simply too short, Toprak Razgatlioglu says, the Turkish MotoGP star saying he was “bored” during his final two seasons in the championship.
The 2024 and 2025 seasons were dominant ones for Razgatlioglu in WorldSBK, winning the title in both years and winning almost 40 races.
The second year in particular he faced stiff competition from Nicolo Bulega, but the success he had was enough to get him a move to MotoGP with Pramac Yamaha for 2026.
In comparison to the WorldSBK calendar, MotoGP’s schedule is extremely busy, with 22 races across nine months, plus an intense and condensed winter testing campaign in February.
The recent MotoGP summer break was a welcome one, then, for Razgatlioglu, although he didn’t have much time to just rest.
“Not a real break because just three weeks, but just I rested total three days, full rest, I’m not doing anything,” Toprak Razgatlioglu told Crash.net in an interview ahead of the British Grand Prix.
“But after, I continued to do one month more holiday, but also I’m training.
“But anyway, this is good because total two weeks, I did a really holiday style but with training.
“But also I feel it’s really good, I think everyone the same, because the MotoGP season is so long and also we don’t have any free time.
“Now also there’s a good [break] after this race, we have two weeks more, and after is incredible because we are going to many races and also race-by-race – this one is very difficult for all riders. For us, this is the problem.”
The MotoGP calendar is drastically different from WorldSBK’s. Even before he’d moved into the Superbike class itself in 2018, Razgatlioglu had been in that paddock several years, having moved to the Superstock 600 class full-time in 2015, so its cadence and rhythm became normal to him.
That means between 12 and 14 rounds per season (on the lower end of that scale for the last few years) spread over eight months, from the end of February to the middle of October.
Such a number of rounds over such a period of time creates big gaps between races even outside of the summer break.
For example, this year WorldSBK’s summer break lasts from the middle of July after the UK Round to the beginning of September with the French Round at Magny-Cours, so around two months; but before that was another gap of four weeks between the Emilia-Romagna Round at Misano and the Donington race that finished the first part of the season.
After the French Round is another three-week gap before the next round at Cremona.
For Razgatlioglu, this low-frequency calendar is something WorldSBK needs to address.
“Superbike needs more races, because I like the Superbike calendar, but also the last two years I’m really bored because we do less races,” he said.
“After the race, now, especially after Donington Park, they are two months free.
“That’s good for the riders, but this is too much. Why too much? Two months summer break is okay, I understand, this is the summer break, it’s nice, but after the race, three weeks break again. I don’t like this one.
“But they need more races.
“This is the world championship, they need minimum 15 or 16 races. If they change this I think Superbike is getting much better.”
Razgatlioglu also confessed that the lack of competition in WorldSBK this year has dissuaded him from watching the races.
“Just sometimes I’m watching, because I don’t have the time to follow Superbike a lot,” the Pramac Yamaha rider said.
“I just follow for the Turkish riders, I’m looking more at Supersport because Can [Oncu] is fighting for the podium, and Bahattin [Sofuoglu] also still fighting with Yamaha in Superbike – I’m still following them.
“But I’m not really watching all the races, because I know the result.”
Alex joined the Crash.net team in August of 2024 having covered consumer and racing motorcycle news at Visordown for two years.
