Toprak Razgatlioglu may not have set his best lap in qualifying at Misano, but in the middle of Sunday's race on a used medium tyre, he clocked his fastest time of the weekend. The Pramac Yamaha rider recorded a 1m 31.770s on lap 12 of 27, half a second quicker than his Saturday qualifying time. Only Fermin Aldeguer and Pedro Acosta were faster than him on that lap.
Interestingly, Razgatlioglu was momentarily faster than race winner Marc Marquez, who set a 1m 31.812s—albeit while repassing Jorge Martin for the lead. However, starting last on the grid made Razgatlioglu's race a struggle. His inability to overtake caused his front tyre to overheat, leading to a frustrating experience.
"We are always fighting but on the straight, they make a gap," Razgatlioglu said. "Then every corner, we are pushing on the brakes to close the gap. The race is always like this. This is hard because I'm not overtaking anyone. I'm just closing, again you see the gap, closing again. Every lap is like this. In the end, also every lap I follow another rider, my front tyre temperature is going quite high, and so the front tyre starts locking, and closing. My best is like this, to finish P12."
Aside from passing Alex Rins and Joan Mir, who both retired due to sickness, and Franco Morbidelli's long lap penalty, the reigning WorldSBK champion only gained places due to riders crashing out ahead. The last of those was Johann Zarco, moving Razgatlioglu into twelfth place at the chequered flag. But Razgatlioglu's mid-race pace and best lap time was a "surprise".
"I'm also surprised because I see that after half the race, I started doing '31, and this is very impressive," he said. "I'm also surprised because I did a '31.7, so my best lap this weekend I did in the race. In qualifying, I did not see the '31. This is good for me. And also, we catch Fabio. Okay, I'm not able to do any overtakes because I'm on the limit already, but the pace is very similar to Fabio. This is good for me because we did a big step."
However, such pace counts for little if Razgatlioglu continues to start at the back. "For me, the biggest problem is I'm starting last," he said. "If start 10th, 12th or 13th position, it's maybe easy to stay in the top 10. Because the 7th-8th position riders are doing the same pace as me. So for me, qualifying is important. This is hard, because I'm trying to do better with the soft tyre, but the lap time is not coming. This is my biggest problem. I already talked with the team and in Austria we will be focused a lot on Friday to improve this problem. If I start a little bit in front, maybe I'm doing a much better race, because my pace is top 10, but it was impossible here to overtake. Anyway, for me a positive race, because I see the pace, especially after half the race, is really strong."
Razgatlioglu now heads straight to next weekend's Red Bull Ring round, where he hopes to overcome his qualifying woes and be more competitive. With promising pace, it's not impossible for him to fight at the front if he starts from a better position.
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