Portimão. The long FIM Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK)
summer break ended for the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team with two days
of testing at Portimão (POR). At the same venue, the team with
riders Tom Sykes (GBR) and Markus Reiterberger (GER) will start the
final spurt of the season in two weeks’ time. In hot summer
conditions, the team prepared for the remaining four rounds of the
season and tested new items for several areas of the BMW S 1000 RR.
Quotes after the Portimão test.
Shaun Muir, Team Principal BMW Motorrad WorldSBK
Team: “For Markus, it’s been a really good test. We’ve made
quite a lot of changes on the electronic strategy, also changes with
the suspension. It has given him a good race pace consistency which we
have been looking for. So overall for Markus it has been a good test.
Tom has come back very good on the second day of testing after he had
two crashes on the first day. He has worked through some engine and
electronic strategy and some rear linkage work. And overall to finish
P3 on the afternoon of day two was a good comeback and we are in a
good position for the races in two weeks.”
Tom Sykes: “The first day wasn’t too easy with two
crashes, but these things happen in racing. All the guys worked really
hard and it looks like I gave them a little bit of work to do. But
they have done a great job and the second day was really successful,
we got a lot of information. I’m very happy with the set-up of the BMW
S 1000 RR in these hot conditions. Looking at the lap time, it looks
worse on paper than it actually is because everybody put different
tyres on. In the end we got what we needed from testing, even with the
small issues, and we are ready to go racing in a couple of weeks. I
will for sure be aiming for the podium again.”
Markus Reiterberger: “It feels good to be back on the
bike after the long summer break. We completed a lot of laps and test
a lot of new things on the electronic side and on the chassis side. It
was really interesting and we found a few positive things for myself
and I improved the feeling a little bit. My lap time was not bad, even
if on the sheet it does not look so good we are not too far away from
the front. We are only nine tenths of a second back and I’m sure it’s
possible to improve for the next races. We will put the best package
together for the races and I will try my best there. Generally, I’m
happy with what we have done, it was a big job from the entire team
who worked very hard. I really enjoyed riding the bike and want to say
thank you to the whole team.”
