#PortugueseWorldSBK Preview: “I think Toprak will be very, very good because I think it’s his favourite track.”

WorldSBK are at Portimão this weekend after a hat-trick of wins for Nicolò Bulega at Phillip Island a month ago.

Last season in Superpole at Portimão, 0.188s covered the front row’s qualifying times and this year the closeness is hoped for. After Bulega took his fist hat-trick of wins, the rest of the riders are looking to step up. The Portimão Test highlighted Toprak Razgatlıoğlu set the fastest times on both days and Bulega finished second.

Jonathan Rea will be sidelined at the Portuguese Round ending his streak as the only rider to have raced all 38 races here since 2008. Iker Lecuona missed the Australian Round due to a broken foot. He also missed the Portimão Test and was due a late fitness check on Thursday – it was confirmed that he will be back for this weekend.

Historically Ducati have the most wins at this track with 39. Aruba.it Ducati’s Álvaro Bautista talked about the upcoming track: “Australia is a special track, especially for Ducati, normally Ducati is very fast there, and we saw that all the Ducati riders can be fast there, but I don’t think that will be normal for all the tracks.

In the test we did a few days ago, both BMWs were fast, the Bimotas were fast, it is more of a normal situation. What we saw in Australia was outside the norm because the machinery and the riders we both working very well there. I think this round we will see more of the reality of the Championship.”

The other half of the Aruba.it Ducati pair, Nicolò Bulega, talked about his competition at this circuit after his recent dominant performance: “I think Toprak will be very, very good because I think it’s his favourite track. Last year, he was very strong here. During the test, he was the rider to beat. We have to watch out him, but I want to say that, in the test, I was not able to push at 100%. Here, I think we can start with a bit of data from the test and improve a lot.”

After some reflection from the test here, Toprak Razgatlıoğlu talked about their discovery with setup for weekend ahead: “In general, we improved just the setup. We know this track and we are just focused on the setup, especially race setup and not only one lap. We did many 10-lap runs to understand the bike, the rhythm and the pace was very good. The whole setup is changing. I’m just waiting for the race weekend, maybe we need a different setup, but it looks like we’re ready.”