Kenan Sofuoğlu commented on Toprak Razgatlıoğlu’s crash during the WSBK France practice session and their current championship situation.
Toprak Razgatlıoğlu’s crash in the France WorldSBK practice sessions led to a collapsed lung, sidelining him for the entire weekend. However, his manager, five-time WorldSSP Champion Kenan Sofuoğlu, believes this incident might have been “something that needed to happen.”
Following the crash on Friday afternoon, Razgatlıoğlu was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a collapsed lung.
Although this kept him out of action in France, Sofuoğlu sees some fortune in the situation. After Razgatlıoğlu’s BMW teammate, Michael van der Mark, won Race 1 in France, Sofuoğlu spoke to WorldSBK.com on Saturday: “Toprak is fine, and I’m very happy that he’s here today.”
“Everyone knows this was a very scary crash, but I believe it was a big piece of luck. Sometimes, you need tough things to happen.”
“We had a fantastic last 13 races, winning all of them. But, when everything goes too well, I personally get a bit scared.”
“Tough things came, but if you watch the crash, we should be grateful because it could have been a very dangerous situation. After that crash, Toprak is still healthy, nothing is broken, of course, he’s in pain, but in the end, he’s here, and he even returned to the track the day after the crash.”
“The only thing is, we couldn’t race this weekend.”
Sofuoğlu expects Razgatlıoğlu to not only return for the ninth race of the season in Cremona in two weeks but also to be in full form.
“I personally believe so because last night I saw Toprak in the hospital, and then this morning at the track.”
“There’s a big improvement, and we still have almost two weeks until the next race, and I believe Toprak will be 100% ready for the next race.”
Razgatlıoğlu arrived in Magny-Cours with a 92-point championship lead, and despite Nicolo Bulega crashing in Race 1 and winning both races on Sunday, Toprak still holds a 55-point lead in the standings before Cremona.
Given that Razgatlıoğlu is not expected to miss any more races due to this injury, Sofuoğlu remains calm about his rider’s championship chances.
“This isn’t a problem: we still have enough of a lead in the championship, and if you look at Saturday, we didn’t lose too many points.”
“I just believe the championship is delayed a little, nothing has changed.”
