Former MotoGP rider Ben Spies, who competed in the championship from 2009 to 2013, believes that talented Toprak Razgatlioglu could have already made the jump to the premier class.
‘My riding style, in general, didn’t adapt to MotoGP. It’s a bit like what’s happening currently with Toprak Razgatlioglu, whom I consider to have almost the same level of talent as Márquez. I spoke to him after his tests with the M1 and told him it would be difficult. Rea is another rider with enough talent to be in MotoGP, but he would have to change his style. I think he believed it was better to stay in SBK and win titles than to go to MotoGP,’ highlighted Spies, in statements to the Gypsy Tales podcast.
The American’s time in MotoGP was marked by a series of shoulder injuries, with the most serious one occurring in 2012 while he was with Yamaha.
‘I’m not a big fan of the current aerodynamic regulations, it limits the points and overtakes and then, it became harder to overtake. The current technical situation has brought some good races, but also crashes and injuries, all of this in 44 races. This even happened more in sprints than in longer races, many things are decided in the first laps, when it becomes harder to drive the machines at a certain pace. Fans don’t care about lap times or track records, they want to watch the most exciting race possible. It would be better if some of the technical innovations disappeared in the future. There are so many trying to have more exciting races and now I believe it’s enough to have tires with less performance and avoid million-dollar developments’, Ben Spies concluded.
