{"id":658359,"date":"2026-05-08T19:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T19:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658359\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T19:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T19:54:08","slug":"my-fault-toprak-razgatlioglu-takes-the-blame-for-p20-in-french-motogp-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658359\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMy fault\u201d: Toprak Razgatlioglu takes the blame for P20 in French MotoGP Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Toprak Razgatlioglu says it was his \u201cfault\u201d that he finished down in 20th in French MotoGP Practice in his first day on Le Mans\u2019 Bugatti Circuit.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Razgatlioglu was the slowest of the four Yamaha riders and almost 0.9 seconds behind next-slowest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/911998\/fabio-quartararo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fabio Quartararo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/teams\/prima-pramac-yamaha\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pramac Yamaha<\/a> rider explained afterwards that he is still not completely comfortable with the track, and that the field spread was much smaller than he expected, with the top 19 riders all within a second of the fastest time.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cToday\u2018s position is my fault,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/wsbk\/racer\/995265\/toprak-razgatlioglu\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Toprak Razgatlioglu<\/a> said after Practice in France.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt\u2018s not easy because I\u2018m still trying to fully understand the track, but at the same time I was surprised by how close everybody is here \u2013 almost everyone is doing very similar lap times.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cToday I was finally able to see some low 1m31s, but my target is to get into the 1m30s tomorrow.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI\u2018m still learning the circuit while also trying to ride at the limit, so step by step I need to improve in every area.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Part of Razgatlioglu\u2019s reason for taking the responsibility for the performance himself must be linked to the performance of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\/racer\/889478\/alex-rins\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Rins<\/a>, who was sixth on the factory bike and the only Yamaha in the top-15 \u2013 proving that the lap time is in the bike.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cAlex [Rins] did a really good job today with the Yamaha,\u201d said Razgatlioglu, \u201cand Jack [Miller] was also very strong, so I need to keep my head down and continue working.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cAs for the track itself, I\u2018m really happy to finally ride at this legendary circuit, although I have to admit I still don\u2018t fully understand the first corner yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Razgatlioglu added that he feels he has made a step with his riding style, especially after spending some time behind Trackhouse Aprilia rider Ai Ogura.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cOne positive thing is that today I wasn\u2018t riding with my Superbike style anymore,\u201d Razgatllioglu said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI followed Ogura for a while and focused on understanding the MotoGP lines and corner entry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIn some corners we were quite similar, but when opening the throttle he had a clear advantage in acceleration compared to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rins \u201cproud\u201d of top-10 performance<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Alex Rins\u2019 sixth place is his best Practice performance of the season so far and gets him a first Q2 appearance of 2026.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Spanish rider had been told before the Jerez race that he will no longer be a Yamaha <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/motogp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MotoGP<\/a> rider in 2027, but Friday in France was one of his best days on the YZR-M1.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI am so proud of what I achieved: I was able to go straight into Q2,\u201d Rins said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt&#8217;s been a long time since I last managed that, so I&#8217;m happy about achieving this today.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWhen I arrived at the box, I saw the mechanics being happy too. When the going is tough, results like this are a boost for the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe need to live in the moment today and then let&#8217;s see what we can do tomorrow \u2013 for sure I will do my best again! But we&#8217;ll go step by step and session by session.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">While it was a strong result for Rins, his teammate Fabio Quartararo was only 17th on the opening day of his home grand prix.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt was tough because I expected much more, especially on one lap, because I was feeling great doing them at the Jerez test,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cToday I didn&#8217;t have that same feeling, and I made some mistakes on my best lap, but it was not bad.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI had a bit of an \u2013 for us \u2013 unusual feeling on the bike, but let&#8217;s check. We have a lot of data that we can analyse, also from Alex [Rins], so that will be interesting to see. We have to make a step for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toprak Razgatlioglu says it was his \u201cfault\u201d that he finished down in 20th in French MotoGP Practice in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[40457,64,63,16230,10671,806,805,803,804,7188,85,23899],"class_list":["post-658359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-alex-rins","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fabio-quartararo","tag-monster-energy-yamaha-motogp","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-prima-pramac-yamaha","tag-sports","tag-toprak-razgatlioglu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}