P1racenews AI automatic summary:
MotoGP-bound Toprak Razgatlioglu is leaving World Superbike as a three-time champion after a nervier-than-expected 2025 title decider at Jerez
MotoGP-bound Toprak Razgatlioglu is leaving World Superbike as a three-time champion after a nervier-than-expected 2025 title decider at Jerez. The 29-year-old Turk, who will ride for Pramac Yamaha on a factory Yamaha contract in MotoGP next year, signed with BMW in 2023 and gave it its first and second riders’ title in the category during his two seasons on the bike. His first season was utterly dominant, but the loss of BMW’s ‘superconcession’ chassis and a stiffer challenge from Ducati’s Nicolo Bulega made 2025 a closer affair – even though each of the campaigns featured a Superbike-record run of 13 wins in a row for Razgatlioglu, who had won his first WSBK title with Yamaha back in 2021. He needed just three points across Sunday’s two races – but champagne was kept on ice by major controversy in the day’s first race, the shorter-distance Superpole race. In the end, despite that and despite the crash relegating Razgatlioglu to 10th on the grid for the final race, it all proved very straightforward for the BMW rider – who hadn’t crashed out from a race once all season before the Bulega contact. Razgatlioglu leaves behind a WSBK career of three titles, 78 wins (second all-time, behind Jonathan Rea) and 174 podiums (second all-time, also behind Rea). The 38-year-old Rea has retired from World Superbike after two disappointing years at Yamaha, his glistening career ending with a final-race withdrawal – after suffering a knee sprain and contusion in a Superpole race crash with Remy Gardner. The other rider in the pre-Bulega WSBK ‘big three’ is Alvaro Bautista – who will switch to Ducati satellite team next year after the works team didn’t pick up the option on him, and turns 41 next month. Bautista has felt targeted by WSBK’s weight rules introduced in 2023.
