Six-time British Superbike Champion Shane Byrne gave his opinion on Nicolo Bulega and Toprak Razgatlioglu's incident.

The World Superbike Superpole Race was expected to be the race where Toprak Razgatlioglu was crowned the 2025 World Superbike Champion.

However, on the opening lap, his title rival, Nicolo Bulega, made contact with him, and Razgatlioglu found himself in the gravel at Turn Five. The Turkish rider did not score any points in the Superpole Race, whereas Bulega went on to win the race despite being given a long lap penalty.

After the race had finished and Bulega had apologised in Parc Ferme to Toprak Razgatlioglu and BMW, the six-time British Superbike Champion, Shane Byrne, gave his thoughts on the incident.

"Nicolo Bulega has not really put a foot wrong all year," Byrne said on TNT Sports after the Superpole Race.

"We have never ever seen him do something like that. You could argue that the move yesterday was very, very similar; the outcome today was far worse.

"For Nicolo to say he is not happy to win says everything it needs to say about the guy. He just wants to try to win the World Championship. He knew he had speed; he knew he was so fast, with the long lap penalty, he absolutely smoked the whole field.

"He knew he had to get in front, and did not do much different."

Was it a dirty manoeuvre? No, it was not...'

"Nicolo Bulega has had no option other than to go for wins at the last few rounds," he added.

"It is almost like everything and the kitchen sink, the move he made today was not dramatically different to the move he made yesterday. Yesterday, Toprak [Razgatlioglu] did not go down; today, at the most crucial point in the Championship, Toprak did.

"The Turkish fans are obviously very, very passionate and unhappy about it. But was it a dirty manoeuvre? No, it was not. It was a manoeuvre that he saw a gap and he went for it. Ayrton Senna once said, 'if you didn't go for a gap, you weren't a racer'.

"He is trying to win a World Championship; we are not playing Tiddlywinks."

'The objective for Toprak is to just finish the race.'

For the final race of the weekend at Jerez, Toprak can finish as low as 13th place and still claim the World Superbike Championship.

But when asked about what he believes Bulega will do in Race Two on Sunday afternoon, Byrne believes he will not try to engage in a battle with his rival again.

"I think he is going to try and get a good start and check out," he explained, looking ahead to Race Two.

"He is going to want absolutely nothing to do with any battle with anybody. Let's be honest, over this weekend, he has had the pace to do that. He has disappeared off at the front. Yesterday, Toprak had nothing for him, and I don't know if he would have had anything for him in this Sprint Race.

"But he would have finished the race, and Toprak would have become World Champion. Now, Toprak just needs to ride around. The objective for Toprak is to just finish the race. But the problem is when there has been a crash like that, it can be difficult and it can do damage."