Toprak Razgatlioglu made his debut for BMW in World Superbike’s, despite a podium in the Sprint Race he was not astounded after his first race outings on the bike.

BMW returned to a World Superbike podium as Toprak Razgatlioglu fought for a third place finish in the Superpole Race at Phillip Island. However, the German manufacturer and Turkish rider crashed back down to reality after an engine issue in the final race of the weekend.

After his BMW debut Razgatlioglu is left feeling ’50/50′ due to the success and issues that they encountered throughout the weekend.

“I’m really sad because I didn’t expect the engine problem,” said Razgatlioglu, following on from his DNF in Race Two.

“In Race 2, I said, ‘this is the first time that I’m riding the bike’ because I’m always trying to save the rear tyre. I started and passed Lowes and started going forwards but then the engine problem came.

“This is racing and for the first weekend of the season, in general, I’m not really happy, 50/50. I had the podium but in Race 2, I was ready to fight for the win. I was just watching it instead but in Barcelona, we need to comeback stronger.”

Razgatlioglu continued to talk about the difference between testing on a BWM and racing the M1000RR for the first time: “Testing and race weekends are totally different.

“In the races, we learnt a lot as we got race data and it’s good for work. Phillip Island is different to the ones in Europe. It’s not possible to say if we’re learning 100% but we’ll see in Barcelona but it’s a hard track like here. We’ll start at Assen and other circuits but we’re not bad. Every race weekend, we’re coming step-by-step.”

Image from WorldSBK.com