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The year 2025 might not have started in the best of ways, but Toprak Razgatlioglu is ready to fight. Although still sore after the frightening highside he experienced on Monday during the first day of testing at Phillip Island, the defending champion is looking forward to getting back on his BMW M 1000 RR to do battle with the Ducatis in the first round of the season.
"How do I feel? Not bad, I feel a little better," Toprak told us on the eve of the opening Round, "I have less pain and I'm happy, especially because the weekend finally starts. I'm just looking forward to Friday."
In view of what transpired in the last pre-season tests, it will be Nicolò Bulega who will be on the grid as the man to beat, but many expect to see Razgatlioglu back in front of everyone in the race.
"We'll see. Usually, Bulega goes very strong right away in Australia and that was the case last year as well. That's because his riding style is suitable for this track, where you don't need to brake hard, but have more speed in the corners," commented the BMW rider. "Bulega is very competitive here, but so are the other Ducatis: there will easily be five Ducatis in front. We are trying to be there to fight with them and I hope we can improve my bike on Friday. My goal is to fight in the race with Bulega and all the others. It will not be easy because Nicolò is very strong, but I never give up. We also saw this at Jerez, where Bulega is usually very competitive and I won the last race. If you believe it and if you improve the bike, it's easy to battle with everyone."
Considering his physical condition, and the fact that he has already been forced to miss part of the winter tests due to a fractured index finger suffered in training, wouldn't the defending champion be better off opting for a conservative weekend, rather than taking a risk by starting immediately on the attack?
"Everyone thinks I went on the attack right away? I had a highside with the throttle open at 39 percent, because there was no traction control. I didn 't even understand how I crashed," the man himself was quick to point out, "I usually don't crash on the first lap. Maybe later, but it's a very strange thing for me as well. In any case, I'm lucky that I don't have any fractures and can continue riding, even though I feel a lot of pain. It's important for me to bring home some good points for the championship. Especially on this circuit."
Before starting to focus on the race weekend, the 28-year-old commented on the opinions expressed by some MotoGP riders regarding this start of the World Championship. With particular attention to the words of Luca Marini.
"They were all very respectful, Marini was the only one who spoke a little (badly) about me. It's strange, but he'd be better off focusing on his own career."
