Last weekend, in Portugal, Álvaro Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu staged one of the greatest battles of the Superbike World Championship so far, and it was so close that it even led the Spanish rider to think that he could fall if the Turkish rider had the same bad luck given their proximity. A crazy duel that ended with the Ducati rider winning in the end.
The #1 spoke about the fierce battle he had with his Yamaha rival: ‘Basically, Toprak had nothing to lose and tried everything. Sometimes, when he was behind me, I tried for a few laps not to stay so close to him to cool down the front tire. When you are very close, especially in the flowing section, the temperature rises and you lose a bit of performance, so I wanted some space. I tried to close the doors many times, but he always put the bike inside! It’s normal, I was already expecting this from him […]’.
It was such a close race with both so close to each other that many times even scared as he explained: ‘He gave his best at all times and often I thought: “Shit, if he crashes, I fall with him”. He was on the limit and, almost always, I had to lift the bike to avoid touching. I enjoyed doing it; I didn’t just settle for second place until the end or try to score points for the title. I wanted to fight with him and beat him. It was like a normal race, not a race that can decide many things’.Bautista also tried to anticipate #54’s maneuvers to take the lead and finally win: ‘In Spain, we say: “The devil knows more because he is old than because he is the devil”. I expected this maneuver from Toprak, he knew I was going to try on the last corner on the inside and in the morning I was on the outside, but he was using all the berms and I changed the line! In Race 2, I stayed on the outside because I thought maybe he would close the corner. Instead, I saw him not opening the throttle to stay on the inside, so I said: “He will close the corner”. So, I accelerated with the bike spinning a lot and I can have more speed coming out on the outside’.
