The last chapter of the year is in the books; the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship’s 2023 season came to a dramatic close and it got the classic head-to-head it deserved. The debriefs were awash with stories from the epic battle and the farewells within teams, making these hot headlines from Jerez muy picante!
Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati): “To beat Toprak, you have to attack; you can’t defend… one of the best races in WorldSBK”
Champion on Saturday, Bautista spoke of the fight for title #2 all season: “Toprak congratulated me and I said to him, ‘thanks’ because he had an amazing season. With the numbers I have this season, 25 victories, he still kept the Championship alive until the last round. That means he had an incredible performance. He didn’t make mistakes. To have a rival like him is always difficult because you cannot make mistakes, you can’t relax in some races and lose some points because, this year, every chance I had to try and fight for victory, I tried until the end because I knew that maybe five points here or there, in the end, to beat Toprak, you have to attack. You can’t defend. This year, I never thought about being conservative. Otherwise, Toprak is always there. It’s incredible to have a rival like him because he keeps you focused on the season; you cannot relax anytime. I congratulated him because he did amazing and thanks for all the show me and him put on.”
Then, the epic Race 2 battle which saw over 30 overtakes between himself and Razgatlioglu: “I like to win without penalties but it’s a rule that everybody knows. Anyway, I’m not happy for the win, I’m happy for the race. We battled really hard, and we did everything. We were aggressive but correct, respecting each other, I think it’s one of the best races in WorldSBK! It’s even better than Portimao Race 2. At Portimao, the overtakes were in one corner, then the next lap the same corner. Here, it didn’t matter which corner! Normally, I ride by keeping a margin of risk. I didn’t have this problem so I could ride like I wanted. I tried many passes, tried defending and tried attacking without caring about whether I made a mistake. In the fight, he had more chance to win the battle because the way he made the corner, for the battle, is better. Maybe for performance, it’s not, but for the battle, his way to do the corner is better.”
Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK): “We need to improve; it’s why I’m going to BMW… I think there’ll be many wins”
Reflecting on his final season in blue, Toprak Razgatlioglu summed up the immense battle with Bautista: “At the beginning of the season, I wasn’t really strong. Alvaro was always strong especially at the beginning, winning many races. We kept fighting with him. I’m happy everything finished in the last round. In general, I enjoyed a lot this year. I’m always focused on winning the Championship, but I finished in second. I’m sad for this but everybody could see I tried more than 100% every race. I enjoyed today. We are fighting, just sometimes you need luck.”
Ahead of his BMW move, he stated that there could be “many wins” in 2024: “We need to improve; it’s why I’m going to BMW. To try to improve and start to fight again with Alvaro and maybe Jonny. I’m still young, we’re always learning. This year, I was learning how to fight a strong rider, a fast bike and I learnt. I hope next year, we improve the bike. I have more power. I’m riding like a Yamaha style; I think there’ll be many wins. I just need to ride like my style, and this is very important for me.”
Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK): “It’s not the ending we deserved”
It really was a story of what could have been for Jonathan Rea, who crashed out of the lead in his final race for Kawasaki: “Off the lights, I thought ‘f**king hell, this is feeling good.’ The bike with different margins, I just overstepped it a bit at Turn 2. The bike got a little bit squirrely going in and instead of just relaxing the front brake and blowing the corner a bit, I really committed to make the corner with a lot of angle and down I went. It’s not the ending we deserved. I wanted to finish in the right way. Three laps after I crashed, I saw Guim on the pitwall and he was signalling to me something but I didn’t know if I was to come in or stay out! I pictured it finishing with a podium; that would have been nicer but then I wouldn’t have had the moment in pitlane with all the staff.”
Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati): “We never let the bad talk get inside the group”
The journey in factory red is over but Michael Ruben Rinaldi is upbeat regardless: “For me, as an Italian rider, being in the factory Ducati team is special. These three years were amazing for me. I want to thank the Aruba team and Ducati because, even if there were some bad moments, we were a team and we faced that as a team. We never let the bad talk get inside the group. It was really helpful for me to improve as a person and as a rider.”
Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team): “I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll watch the fight between Toprak and Alvaro’… no room at the party for me!”
With a perfect view of the fight for victory, Danilo Petrucci spoke about how he couldn’t quite get on terms with Bautista or Razgatlioglu: “A top five is always good when you have the chance to see the fight between Toprak and Alvaro so close, but you can’t start the first lap in 11th or 12th place. Today, I pushed as much as I could and I faster than in the Superpole Race. I did three or four laps in the 1’40s to get back to the top three, but when I got there, I said, ‘maybe now I’ll watch the fight between Toprak and Alvaro. I thought it might have been a good day but when I got there, there was no room at the party for me.”
Dominique Aegerter (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team): “Toprak did an amazing job with how he fought with Bautista”
A double podium on Sunday – the first Swiss rider to achieve a rostrum in WorldSBK – Dominique Aegerter spoke of the titanic fight: “The emotion was from hungry to disappointed and 30 minutes later, I was very happy! It’s not so easy on a Sunday to keep focus. It’s hard and we achieved our best result in WorldSBK, so I’m very happy. I don’t know what the problem was. We didn’t have time to check it. I was thinking about the podium in the Superpole Race, but I didn’t know if it counted as a real podium or not! A podium is a podium, but I wanted to do it again in the long race. We had a great pace. Jonny and Toprak went, I think, too fast for this long race in the first five laps. I was close to Bautista, and he didn’t have the confidence; he made some small mistakes. I was not sure if I should overtake him or not. Toprak did an amazing job with how he fought with Bautista.”
Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Racing): “I lost fifth in the Championship… I’m not happy for that”
Despite taking the Best Independent Riders’ title, Axel Bassani couldn’t hold on to P5 in the standings: “Three guys tried to put me down! Gardner, Michael and Gerloff. But we won the Independent Riders’ title with a really difficult weekend. I finished Race 2, so I’m happy for that. For sure, before this weekend, my goals were to finish in the top five in all three races and it didn’t happen. I’m not happy. I lost fifth in the Championship after 35 races where I was in that position. I’m not happy for that, but I’m happy for best Independent rider and also the team as we’ve won it two years in a row. Three years I’ve been alone in the box. I think everything will be different for 2024 because I’ll have a teammate; for me, this is strange! I’m really happy to go with Kawasaki, a really good team. Jonny was doing good races so I think we can do a good job.”
2024 AWAITS: enjoy back all the classics from seasons gone by and gear up for next year with the WorldSBK VideoPass!
Source: WorldSBK.com