With the disappearance for a specific period of time of a Yamaha satellite team in MotoGP, Toprak Razgatlioglu's prospects of accessing MotoGP in the short term aboard a machine from the brand have been reduced to its simplest expression. The matter was already complicated and poorly started since the Turk, with his manager Kenan Sofuoglu, proclaimed to anyone who would listen that the only place that interested him was the one next to Fabio Quartararo. The WSBK World Champion will still do his test on the M1, but without pressure. Nor, apparently, even any ambition…
When Lynn Jarvis, the director general of Yamaha in Grand Prix, learned that Razlan Razali left him for Aprilia, one of his first reactions, as if out of spite, was to specify that the first collateral victim of a scenario which will force his brand to play in MotoGP without a satellite team, was Toprak Razgatlioglu. No places are in fact any longer available at Yamaha in Grand Prix.
In Misano, where the Turk did not know the fortune during the first race with a retirement with serious accounting consequences in his WSBK championship, the response came from the box monitored by Kenan Sofuoglu. A sort of echo from the shepherd to the shepherdess here… “ We have a test. This test is good for me because I will be able to try the bike to see if I like it or not. But I don't dream of MotoGP because, for next year, it wouldn't be easy, and this season I'm focusing on my work, my season because it's very important. I need to maintain first place. I also need to win. For me MotoGP is not really important ».
Toprak Razgatlioglu: “ maybe in the future I will also be a WorldSBK legend«
But he doesn't just say that. His vision extends well beyond 2023, and the plan does not leave much prospect of an arrival in MotoGP… “I'm going to stay here, and I'm going to try to win many titles » said Toprak Razgatlioglu on the site woldsbk.com.
And he ends: “Johnny Rea is a WorldSBK legend. Maybe in the future I will also be a WorldSBK legend. My dream is to stay here and try to style several crowns. I'm young now, I still have many years left. I started in WorldSBK in 2018 and I always watch Johnny because he's a legend and he's a multiple World Champion with Kawasaki. We talk and respect each other ". The arrival of a Turk on the MotoGP starting grid does not seem to be happening tomorrow.
