Toprak Razgatlioglu Targets Stronger Friday in German MotoGP

Toprak Razgatlioglu believes stronger Friday performance is the key to unlocking special results at this weekend's German Grand Prix.

The Pramac Yamaha rider returns to the Sachsenring for the first time since his Red Bull Rookies Cup appearance in 2014. On that occasion, Razgatlioglu claimed first and third-place finishes while battling Joan Mir, who later became a MotoGP world champion.

Although he has previous memories of Sachsenring, Razgatlioglu admitted he must relearn the circuit's characteristics. One detail he immediately noticed during a lap on Thursday was the downhill nature of the opening corner.

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“I remember the track. I did a lap today and I just forgot the first corner is downhill,” Razgatlioglu said.

“I was surprised. Anyway, tomorrow I will learn the track again.”

Razgatlioglu arrives in Germany after a pointless weekend at Assen. However, he hopes his lack of recent Superbike experience at Sachsenring can work in his favour, as it may help him avoid carrying too many production-bike habits into MotoGP machinery.

“Maybe it’ll be a little bit better here because I've never ridden the Superbike here,” Razgatlioglu said.

“This is good, because in Assen, when I started on Friday, I was riding like a Superbike style. We will see.”

Razgatlioglu's main focus is improving the start of his weekends. He said his current pattern has been to become faster on Saturday and Sunday, but weak Fridays have left him trying to recover ground from the beginning.

“Just we need to improve Fridays, because we are starting really bad and today, we also did some meetings with the team [about this],” Razgatlioglu said.

“The biggest target is starting Friday much better. Because I'm always getting faster on Saturday and Sunday.”

“So if we start stronger on Friday, I think we can make some special results.”

The German Grand Prix now becomes an important test of Razgatlioglu's MotoGP adaptation, particularly in building speed earlier with Yamaha before judging whether Sachsenring can become a turning point after a difficult Assen weekend.