WorldSBK: Denning: ‘Yamaha really trusted Toprak’, was key to title success

Toprak Razgatlioglu’s maiden WorldSBK title wi♎n was aided by the entire Pata Yamaha team putting their full trust in the Turkish rider according to Team Principal Paul Denning.
Razgatlioglu’s stunn🔯ing 2021 season saw him claim career highs in terms of wins, podiums and pole positions as he became the first rider to beat Jonathan Rea to the title since 2015.
And even though Razgatlioglu sꦰuffered just two crashes compared to Rea’s four - both of which were out of his control, the Kawasaki rider was only 13 points behind come the s❀eason end.
The margin heading into the final round was 30, however, a double feature race win for Rea saw him claw bac🉐k more than half that deficit, while Razgatlioglu finished the tw🦩o races in second and fourth.
The incredible back and forth championship battle between Razgatlioglu and Rea drew high praise from the former’s Team P🌟rincipal, while Denning also alluded to the team putting their entire trust into Razgatlioglu which was key to their success.
Speaking following the final round in Indonesia, Denning added: "With the performance level he (Toprak Razgatlioglu) had, it shows how strong Jonathan [Rea] and🧸 Kawasaki i🌠s.
"We had 37 races and every time we started with a s💝lick tyre Toprak was on the podium, every time!
"With the wet tyre the worst result is P6🦂, and we had 13 wins. So the fact we arrived here (Mandalika) and Jonathan was so close shows that🍒 both these guys; the level was incredible.
"But it’s a team sport and Yamaha improved the bike, the team, the engineers did a great job of adapting the Yamaha to Toprak’s needs, and the biggest thing is that I believe Yamaha and the t🐻eam really ♉trusted Toprak.
"We gave him what h𒐪e needed even if sometimes everything was not norm♐al, tyre choice was sometimes like ‘really’? But he would make it work. The bike setting could be strange but he would make it work.
"His talent, but also when you grow u🎃p you get a little bit more mature, even though his decisions maybe on-track are still at times a little bit special [laughs], but in general there were no mistakes."