Most WorldSBK: ‘It’s frustrating, I want him to understand for safety reasons’ - Scott Redding fuming after Toprak Razgatlioglu’s aggressive overtake
Spea🐈king about the overtake, the 2020 WorldSBK runner-up was not only frustrated by Razgatlioglu’s late move, but also voiced concerns from a safety point of view.
"[It was] more than close, I would say. It’s frustrating a little bit because I want him to🌌 understand, for a safety reason, where the line is o꧃n overtakes," Redding told WorldSBK.com.
"He didn’t make the༺ apex of the corner. He put me completely off the track. Luckily, it waཧs all okay, but I want to know where the limit is.
"Where is it where someone says ‘okay, ♔this is too much’. We finished on the podium but I also had to battle with Jonathan [Rea].
"It was reaᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚlly all go. I was 🍬really hungry for that podium and I was not going to leave anything out on track."
Reddi♍ng, who delivered arguably the ride of the year aboard his M 1000 RR, was in contention for what would have been a first WorldSBK win with BMW until the final few laps.
After losing time in the earl⛎y laps d🐈ue to battling Axel Bassani and Andrea Locatelli, Redding closed down the leading trio of Razgatlioglu, Jonathan Rea and Alvaro Bautista, before proceeding to make overtakes on Razgatlioglu and Rea in back-to-back laps.
Although the BMW rider fell short of catching Bautista for the race lead, the British riꦏder looked set for a comfortable second place before Razgatlioglu hauled him in with two laps remaining.
As he tried to set up a move on the pe♌nultimate lap, Razgatlioglu was unable to use his incredible late braking into turn one due to the BMW having greater top speed, thus an inventive move elsewhere on the Czech circuit was needed to be made.
And that’s exactly what the Pata Yamaha rider tried at turn 15, but as he lunged to the inside of Redding, it quic𝓡kly became apparent that the two riders were heading for a possible collision.
That was until Redding picked up his M 1000 RR and subsequ🎶ently had to run off-track, which th💜en put him under intense pressure from Rea for P3.
“I nearly crashed”, says the WorldSBK champion
While the overtake was clean from the perspective that no contact was made, Razga𝓀tlioglu almost lost the front of his R1, which would have likely ended with both riders crashing out.
Razgatlioglu added: "With Scott [R𓂃edding], because I saw he was very strong in the last sector and also the second sector, I had just one chance.
"I tried. I passed him but I almost crashed, we both went a bit wide 🧸together. Anyway, we finished on the podium and we take good point♛s in the championship."
With the battle between Razgatlioglu, Redding and Rea showing shades of last year, the difference this time around was that it was for second and th𝕴ird, Bautista was able to take another dominant victory at a circuit where it appeared unlikely💧 that would be the case.
During free practice Razgatlioglu, Rea, Redding and even team-mate Michael Ruben Rinaldi seemed more comfortable aboarಞd their Superbike machines, but when it counted m🔴ost, Bautista was able to deliver once again.
