Yamaha Europe has confirmed that Toprak Razgatlioglu will join Michael van der Mark in the Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team to contest the 2020 FIM World Superbike Championship.
Yamaha Motor Europe President, Eric de Seynes is excited and confident in the strong line-up of Razgatlioglu and van der Mark for 2020. “Toprak Razgatlioglu is the most exciting young rider in WorldSBK and I’m both happy and proud that he will race for Yamaha in 2020” de Seynes said. “When you consider Toprak’s progression this year, only his second in WorldSBK, his prodigious talent is obvious, but so is his warrior spirit. Like his teammate for next season, Michael van der Mark, he’s a rider who always finds that little bit extra on race day and is prepared to push to the limit to overcome any obstacle. We saw that clearly in Magny-Cours, where he came from the sixth row of the grid to claim his first WorldSBK race win. We have also seen this season that Yamaha has closed the gap to our rivals on track and I’m excited to see what Toprak can do on our Yamaha YZF-R1 in 2020. With Michael and Toprak I think we will have one of the strongest and most dynamic rider line ups on the WorldSBK grid next year.”
The news of the young Turkish riders signing comes just days after it was revealed that Alex Lowes would depart the team at the end of 2019.
The 22-year-old joined the WorldSBK class in 2018, and after a string of podium finishes, took an impressive maiden win in Race 1 at Magny-Cours after starting from 16th on the grid, backing that up with victory in the sprint race.
