BMW Motorrad Motorsport customer teams impress with strong results at the 2016 FIM Superbike World Championship season opener in Australia.

Munich (DE), 2nd March 2016. The wait in the elite class of Superbike
racing is over: This last weekend, the 2016 season of the FIM
Superbike World Championship (WSBK) kicked off in Phillip Island (AU).
For BMW Motorrad Motorsport, a new chapter opened this season, with
two new customer teams racing the BMW S 1000 RR in the WSBK: the
Italian Althea BMW Racing Team and Milwaukee BMW from Great Britain.
Both teams work closely together with the engineers from BMW Motorrad
Motorsport, who supported them at Phillip Island and will also be
on-site over the whole season.

 

The Althea BMW Racing Team is a long-time contender in the series,
having won the riders’ world title with Carlos Checa (ES) back in
2011. For this year, the squad around General Manager Genesio
Bevilacqua opted to field two BMW S 1000 RRs in the WSBK, ridden by
Jordi Torres (ES) and Markus Reiterberger (DE). The team will also
enter one RR in the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup (STK1000), which holds its
races during the European WSBK round.

 

Milwaukee BMW is contesting its debut season in the world
championship. Team Principal Shaun Muir’s team successfully competed
in the British Superbike Championship (BSB) in the past years, winning
the BSB riders’ title with Josh Brookes (AU) last season. Brookes, who
had several appearances in the WSBK before, will now contest his first
full season in the series on the RR. His teammate on the other
Milwaukee BMW S 1000 RR is the former MotoGP rider Karel Abraham (CZ),
who debuts in the WSBK this year.

 

Before the first round of the season, both teams took part in the
two-day test held by the WSBK at Phillip Island last week. They used
the track time to get further acquainted with the RR and worked
together with the experts from Munich on adapting the set-up to the
individual riders’ needs. For Torres, Brookes and Abraham 2016 marks
the first season on the RR. Reiterberger has raced other versions of
the bike in the past years, but the 2016 WSBK version of the RR is
also new to him.

 

After the season opener, the customer teams and BMW Motorrad
Motorsport can draw a positive conclusion: In this highly competitive
championship, the two BMW teams ended the first races of the year as
the best privateer teams.

 

Spaniard Torres, who is contesting his second WSBK season, led the
BMW quartet, finishing both races within the top eight. Despite the
fact he had suffered an injured elbow when crashing during the test
early in the week, he got faster and faster on his RR over the race
weekend. The Althea BMW Racing rider was eighth in race one on
Saturday and seventh in race two on Sunday. His Althea BMW Racing
teammate Reiterberger attracted a lot of attention in Friday’s
practice sessions, setting fast lap times and qualifying directly for
the deciding Superpole 2 on Saturday. In race one, however, the
two-time International German Championship IDM (IDM) champion,
experienced bad luck. In the last corner before the finish line,
Reiterberger had a fall, caused by damage to the tyre, while lying in
ninth position. In Sunday’s second race, Reiterberger was able to
transfer his performance to a result, crossing the line in eighth
directly behind Torres.

 

Newcomer Milwaukee BMW constantly progressed over the weekend and
finished its first ever WSBK round with two top ten finishes and
points for both riders in both races. Brookes was tenth in Saturday’s
race. On Sunday, he crossed the line in ninth after a close battle
with fellow BMW rider Reiterberger. Abraham also got more and more
acquainted with the RR, finishing 13th on Saturday and 11th on Sunday.

 

The second round of the 2016 FIM Superbike World Championship will be
held from 11th to 13th March at the Chang International Circuit in
Buriram, Thailand.

 

You can find all the information on BMW Motorrad Motorsport online at
the BMW Motorrad Motorsport website:

 

www.bmw-motorrad-motorsport.com