RAZGATLIOGLU CALLS ARAGON A POSITIVE STEP DESPITE CRASH

Toprak Razgatlioglu left MotorLand Aragón with mixed results after crashing out of the Grand Prix in Turn 12. The Yamaha rider’s final outcome—an early retirement—did not reflect the progress he felt across the weekend, particularly compared with his more difficult recent outings at Silverstone and the Sachsenring.

Razgatlioglu’s Sunday started poorly in terms of track position. He said the race began “not particularly well,” explaining that he lost places before fighting his way back. “We could make up some positions,” he noted, adding that his initial feeling on the bike “wasn’t too good,” but that he eventually found his rhythm and “came to grips with it better.”

As the race developed, however, the front end became the deciding factor. Razgatlioglu reported that the front tyre began to degrade, and with it his ability to maintain his earlier pace. “The front tyre was wearing down. It wasn’t easy for me to hold my race pace,” he said. He described how the bike struggled to turn as the session went on, claiming that he was “almost in every corner” leaving the racing line because the motorcycle “wasn’t turning in anymore” and the front wheel was blocking.

With three laps remaining, the situation ended in a crash. Razgatlioglu said he went down while braking into Turn 12. “I wanted to keep my lap times, but that was impossible because the bike wasn’t braking,” he explained. He then added that later he crashed again.

The retirement was especially frustrating because Razgatlioglu believed he had a realistic chance of a points finish before the tyre problem took hold. “If I hadn’t lost the feeling for the front, I might have been eleventh or twelfth,” he said. “Before the front tyre started to go off, the race was really going well. That destroyed my race.”

Even so, he insisted the weekend still carried positives. “For me it was a positive weekend,” Razgatlioglu said, summarising it as a learning step after two tough weeks. “We learned something again,” he added, pointing to the fact that at Aragón he was able to fight for the points rather than falling behind as he had recently.

One remaining concern is qualifying. Razgatlioglu said the Saturday setup left him with a difficult starting position, and in Q1 only Aprilia substitute rider Lorenzo Savadori was slower than him.

The crash also affected him physically. Razgatlioglu cancelled a planned media appearance after the race due to back pain, choosing instead to be treated immediately by his physiotherapist.

Overall, Aragón left Razgatlioglu with a clear message: the race pace and confidence were moving in the right direction, but the next step is to translate that progress into qualifying so he can start closer to the front and avoid having to recover from poor grid positions.