The Oxley interview
Toprak Razgatlıoğlu wants to be the first World Superbike champion to conquer MotoGP. But don’t expect too much from his rookie season, in which two big questions will be answered: can he adapt to MotoGP’s tricky front tyre, and will Yamaha’s new V4 be fast enough?
By Mat Oxley Photography BMW, Michelin, Pramac, Yamaha
‘Bless you,’ says Toprak Razgatlıoğlu as teammate Jack Miller dissolves into a sneezing fit, the legacy of the Australian’s 23-hour journey to Pramac Yamaha’s 2026 team launch in Italy. ‘See, I told you he’s a top lad,’ coughs Miller through a handkerchief.
I’ve been interviewing motorcycle racers for more than 40 years and I’ve never met a more polite, humble, chilled racer than Razgatlıoğlu. If the eyes are the window of the soul, his are an ocean of calm, although we know that hidden somewhere deep inside is a raging furnace of warlike aggression.
Polite, calm, chilled. And honest, too.
‘Sorry, but I don’t like the media, because I don’t like to talk,’ he says when I ask him how he will handle the increased media attention during his rookie MotoGP season. ‘But, okay, we are talking plenty because this is part of my job.’
Polite, calm, chilled, honest. And fast.
Razgatlıoğlu has been World Superbikes’ brightest shining light for the past half-decade or so, dazzling fans with his speed on the track, his rolling stoppies in pit lane and his easy-going aura. So much so that some people wonder how WSB will survive without his showmanship and charisma.
Significantly, ‘El Turco’ won his three World Superbike crowns – with Yamaha in 2021 and with BMW in 2024 and 2025 – fighting against superior machinery. First Kawasaki’s ZX-10R, then Ducati’s Panigale V4. He’s definitely fast.
But will he be fast enough to be the first WSB champion to conquer MotoGP? Because plenty of WSB champions have moved into MotoGP, only to struggle like hell. Indeed, more than 600 MotoGP races have been held since the World Superbike Championship was created in 1988 and only two have been won by WSB champs: Valencia 2006 by Troy Bayliss; and Assen 2011 by Ben Spies.
‘MotoGP is a different world,’ says Razgatlıoğlu. ‘It’s not easy because there are so many strong and fast riders.’
Is the 29-year-old Turk better than Bayliss and Spies? Probably, because his talent is something special, even supernatural. He made the difference in WSB with his mindboggling skills in corner entry, where he treads the finest of lines between braking and turning, balancing those conflicting forces to find speed where others find the gravel trap. Which is exactly how Marc Márquez makes the difference in MotoGP.
‘If you feel some front lock you need to understand what’s going on, because this can be a dangerous thing,’ says Razgatlıoğlu, miming the front tyre locking and skidding across the asphalt. ‘When you feel the lock you release the brake a little, then you put pressure again until you feel some lock, then you release the brake a bit again…’
But that’s with Pirelli’s super-friendly front tyre. When a WSB rider charges into a corner, asking too much of the Pirelli front, the tyre goes like this – going, going, going, gone! – so he has time to pull back from the brink. When a MotoGP rider charges into a corner, asking too much of the Michelin front, the tyre goes like this – going, gone! – so he ends up on the ground. Razgatlıoğlu has long known that mastering the Michelin front is a big challenge.
‘When you brake with the Pirelli you can understand everything; the other tyre looks a bit… difficult,’ he told me a couple of years ago. And what does he think now, as he stands on the cusp of making his MotoGP debut in Thailand at the end of February?
‘The first touch with the Michelin [during off-season testing] wasn’t so bad, but I need to understand the limit,’ he says. ‘Because now I don’t know the limit, so maybe I will have to have some crashes to understand.’
Razgatlıoğlu’s – and Márquez’s – otherworldly corner-entry speed isn’t only about his front-end skills. It’s also about how he sets up his bike to allow him to use more rear brake and engine brake to decelerate better and take some load off the front tyre.
‘I need to change the bike set-up, especially seat position,’ he adds. ‘Because at the moment I have too much transfer on the brakes [so the bike stands on its nose, taking away load and therefore grip from the rear tyre]. If I find a good set-up I can start the season at full power. But we are just talking now – it’s important to show something in the races.’
The other big challenge facing Razgatlıoğlu – who is almost 10 years older than Márquez was when the Spaniard entered MotoGP – is the performance of his motorcycle. He has joined Yamaha’s MotoGP project at a critical time, with the Iwata brand replacing its ageing inline-four M1 with a completely new V4 M1. Can the bike be competitive against the Aprilia, Ducati, Honda and KTM V4s in its first season?
Razgatlıoğlu isn’t the man to ask, because to him MotoGP bikes still feel like spaceships. ‘Especially the acceleration is incredible,’ he says. So, what does Pramac teammate Miller – who has raced Ducati, Honda and KTM V4s – think of Yamaha’s latest MotoGP bike?
‘The V4 will help, but maybe not too much in the early stages of the season, because it needs some more ponies,’ says the Aussie. ‘But Yamaha had to go with a V4. You couldn’t stop with the inline-four. With the V4’s weight distribution you have a lot more stopping potential, being able to use the engine brake and the rear tyre to help stop the bike. It’s the same with traction – the V4 is better at finding traction in the exit of the corner.
‘Toprak can do some amazing things on a motorcycle, so I look forward to seeing his adaptation to MotoGP. He’s got a very unique riding style – just the way he brakes and the way he accelerates. He keeps central with the bike and he’s able to find traction, even though it doesn’t seem like he’s looking for it.’ Perhaps we ought to take a step back from discussing Razgatlıoğlu’s chances and celebrate the fact he’s made it into MotoGP at all, because he never expected to get this far.
‘When I started the motorcycle life I had a dream to become a world champion, but my dream wasn’t for MotoGP, because it seemed too far, because I come from Turkey,’ he explains. ‘When I was young I followed Kenan [Sofuoğlu, multiple World Supersport champion and now Razgatlıoğlu’s mentor and manager], so my dream was to be a World Supersport rider, teammates with Kenan.’
A big part of Razgatlıoğlu’s apprenticeship in the class of kings will be adapting his riding technique to MotoGP bikes, which are more like two-wheeled Formula 1 cars than motorcycles.
‘When I watched MotoGP on TV it wasn’t easy to understand, to see the reality and learn. When I went to Valencia [last November] and watched from trackside, it looked like no one was fast but the lap times were really strong. I understood that you don’t need to ride a MotoGP bike aggressively, you need to ride with more corner speed, so now I’m focused on this, trying to make more corner speed. I need time to learn but I understood that this is the key.
‘Everyone is very excited – Toprak is finally coming! But I’m always telling everyone – please, this is my first year, a learning year, so don’t expect results like in World Superbikes, because MotoGP is a completely different championship. I don’t know what results I can make this year, but if I make some good results we will be happy and if I make some podiums, this would be incredible.’
Razgatlıoğlu has a two-year contract with Pramac Yamaha, so he has a straightforward plan: learn in 2026, then fight at the front in 2027 when the championship gets its biggest rules shake-up since big four-strokes arrived in 2002.
MotoGP’s plan is to make the bikes less like F1 cars and more like motorcycles, so rider skill will once again play a greater role than engineering genius, which will also make overtaking easier, creating more exciting racing. To that end, downforce aerodynamics are being trimmed and ride-height devices banned. At the same time engines shrink from 1000cc to 850cc, because the 1000s are too fast, nudging 230mph at some tracks. And MotoGP will switch from Michelins to Pirellis – arguably the biggest change of all.
Razgatlıoğlu is convinced the new rules and tyres will take him towards the front of the pack.
‘For me, the 2027 rules will be perfect. Now when I ride a MotoGP bike, I feel the wings and the devices too much. I don’t like this; I like more old school. Now it looks like whichever brand is strongest is always fastest. It’s not like this in Superbikes – okay, Ducati is very strong, but I could fight with them. I hope MotoGP goes this way in 2027.
‘Also, I believe Yamaha will improve their bike a lot. This year they’re starting to use a V4, so I think their 2027 V4 will be stronger.
‘First I will focus on making some podiums, because thinking about winning the championship is stupid. MotoGP isn’t easy, it’s difficult! I always think about the reality, so first I need some podiums, then after that I can build, going step by step.’
Although this will be Razgatlıoğlu’s first year in MotoGP it won’t be his first in the MotoGP paddock. When he was a teenager he contested the Red Bull Rookies Cup, but he was already too big for a Moto3 bike.
He recalls: ‘I remember at Mugello, where everybody passed me so fast on the long straight. I said: “I need to lose some kilos.” So for one week I ate only salad – I went from 66kg to 59kg. At the next race no one passed me so easily on the straight but I was so tired.’
Two months after Razgatlıoğlu’s only Rookies Cup victory – at the 2014 German Grand Prix, where he beat future MotoGP champion Joan Mir into second – Sofuoğlu moved his protégé out of Grands Prix and into superbikes.
Razgatlıoğlu won his debut Superstock 600 at the 2014 French WSB round, dominated the following year’s European Superstock 600 championship and three years later moved into World Superbikes, where the world first noticed his spectacular talent for tricks.
Why is he so good at wheelies and stoppies? Because he has lived much of his life in another dimension: stunt riding, breakdancing, acrobatics and gymnastics. Therefore, his inner gyroscope gives him remarkable balance, agility and motor coordination, so he feels as happy when he’s upside down as when he’s right way up.
Razgatlıoğlu learned to do stunts from his dad, Arif, nicknamed Wheelie Arif, who died in a motorcycle accident nine years ago.
‘I started stoppies at eight years old, so they feel normal to me,’ he says. ‘When I’m racing I only make small stoppies. When I do stoppies in pit lane I use my body like a stunt rider, because when the rear wheel is up for a long time the rear of the bike can turn left or right, so you need to balance it with your body.
‘I can do backflips and I feel easy when I do handstands. I have never stopped doing all these things since I was young. This is how I learned – running, jumping, breakdancing – with my friends. I like finding balance doing these things – I enjoy them and I never stop.’
Razgatlıoğlu is the best kind of motorcycle racer: a total gent off the bike; a total animal on it. Is he good enough to make MotoGP history? We’re going to find out very soon.
Toprak Razgatlıoğlu CV
Born: 16 October 1996 Lives: Sakarya, Turkey
» 2011 18th German Yamaha R6 Cup
» 2012 7th German Yamaha R6 Cup
» 2013 10th Red Bull Rookies Cup
» 2014 7th Red Bull Rookies Cup
» 2015 European Superstock 600 champion
» 2016 5th FIM Superstock 1000 championship
» 2017 2nd FIM Superstock 1000 championship
» 2018 9th World Superbike Championship
» 2019 5th World Superbike Championship
» 2020 4th World Superbike Championship
» 2021 World Superbike champion
» 2022 2nd World Superbike Championship
» 2023 2nd World Superbike Championship
» 2024 World Superbike champion
» 2025 World Superbike champion