WorldSBK: Alvaro Bautista: “Toprak Razgatlioglu never made mistakes, his performance was unbelievable”

Bautista secured a record win total this season as he won ten races more than six-time WorldSBK champi♏on 🌜Jonathan Rea managed in both 2018 and 2019.
The factory Ducati rider was more dominant than ever when it came to defending his title, but that didin’t stop the title fight fromꦓ going down to the wire.
- Bassani: “I🎃’ve started to feel good with the bike, s♐lowly catching Lowes”
- 2023 WorldSBK fall reportไ: Who topped the unwanted crash ༒category?
Razgatlioglu, who was equally impress🎶ive at times, despite only winning 6 races throughout the year, pushed Bautista until the season-finale at Jerez.
Although winning the title was never in doubt during his home round, Bautista finished the year 𝓰amazed by the performances Razgatlioglu delivered.
“My fight for the championship wit🍌h Toprak this season has been difficult, especially in the second half of the season,” said Bautista when talking to WorldSBK.com.
“Toprak was very strong. He never made m♐istakes. I had a record of victories this season but, even with this, he kept the title alive until the last round.
“That means his perfor🅠mance was un🔴believable. When you fight with him for the championship, you can’t say ‘okay, today I’m second, I get some points’ because he’s always there. For that, I had to do the whole season by attacking.
“Doing my best, never relaxinꦑg and always on the limit. Portimao, especially Race 2, I said to everybody that I didn’t want to think about the championship, I just wanted to fight until the end and get the maximum🐲.
“For me, it was easy just to stay second and not risk anything. It is not my mindset. When you win and your rivals have the talent they have, it’s more important to win like this. I’m so proud of how I managed the situation and the races🔴.”
Bautista was mistake-free until round seven when he🍸 crashed out of Race 2 at Imola.
And although more mistakes followed at Magny-Cours and Aragon, Bau൲tista was strong enough to retain his title.
Bautista added: “From Imola, I learnt a lot. Maybe I had more tension than normal. I don’t know iඣf it was because the weather was too hot or the track conditions.
“I think I crashed because of that. I didn’t have a good appreciation of the reality and maybe, in that corner, I touche𝔍d the inside kerb and then I crashed.
“It was my mistake but fortunately I learnt🌠 from it. Aragon was a bit different from Imola. In that crash, I was too confident.
“I had 🎃a bit of a gap to second and maybe I was too relaxed. The second one was because I tried to gain two positions in one corner. I could expect that crash because I was over the limit.”