After two days of testing ahead of the 2024 World Superbike season Toprak Razgatlioglu believes the BMW M1000RR has the potential to fight at the front.

Toprak Razgatlioglu was back out on track for the first time in 2024 on his new BMW M1000RR. The Turkish World Superbike Champion made the move from Yamaha to the ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team for the 2024 season.

After four years in blue Razgatlioglu has a lot of work to do to adapt to his new bike. However, as many expected he was right at the sharp end already as the Turkish rider finished second on day one and fourth on day two.

After his impressive outing Razgatlioglu praised his new team and bike: “These two days of testing have been very positive for me, especially as I am still learning the bike on every lap and I am improving. Especially on these two days we have learnt a lot and we improved some things. We tried many new parts. Sometimes they worked well, sometimes not, but this is normal. We just try to find a good set-up and good parts.

“In general, it has been a very positive test. I did not expect to ride a 1:38 lap time. I’m very surprised because for me the bike is still new, I am still learning and usually my plan is to do a mid 1:39 maybe, but yesterday I started straight away with a 1:39 and I believe that I also could have made a 1:38 yesterday.

“Today I finally made it and I am very happy about it because I see the potential of the bike and this is very good for me. Now we keep working hard and we just need to find my set-up. And after that we will start fighting.”

Razgatlioglu will be taking part in a further two days of testing early next week at Portimão.

Image credit: BMW Press Group