20/08/21
Circuito De Navarra

The BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team today returned to the picturesque Circuito de Navarra in Northern Spain for the 7th Round of the FIM World Superbike Championship. This mornings FP1 session saw the BMW pairing of Tom Sykes and Michael van der Mark both finish inside the top 12 places onboard their BMW M 1000 RR’s.

Temperatures soared from the morning’s session going into FP2 with track temperatures reaching 45°C + meaning only a handful of riders managed to better their times set from FP1. Tom Sykes remained in P9 with his best combined lap time of a 1’38.536. Teammate Michael van der Mark was just two tenths behind Tom, putting him in P11 overall.

“I think we made a good step forward from the last time we were here at the test. This was something we were really interested to see as we knew when we left Misano we were not so strong, so to come here and be strong has confirmed this. Tom and Michael are 0.5 and 0.7 seconds from the front so it is really close on lap times. On race simulation we are clear which tyres we are going to run, which is good. We will go into FP3 in the morning with a very clear direction with some fine tuning to do over night. So, all in all a solid day and I’m looking forward to the race and qualifying.”

“It’s not been a bad day. We have been understanding the package off the back of a test in Catalunya and we understood a few of the parameters. This afternoon in the hotter conditions we really looked at some of the tyre selection that Pirelli have brought here. I was overall happy with our consistency and the pace at the end on used tyres. Hopefully now we have got a lot of information of that and overnight we will now make some fine adjustments and try again tomorrow. It is looking like it is going to be a very hot weekend so hopefully we can maintain that pace from FP2.”

“I think if you look at the position from today it is not really where we want to be. This morning I felt good on the bike and did some OK lap times, but the times from 7^th to my position are really close. Unfortunately, my fastest lap got cancelled so that is why I am back in eleventh place. I think otherwise I potentially would have been 7^th which is not so bad. This afternoon was good for us in the warmer conditions to try some things on the bike and see how it works, I was happy with the bike it just seems we are missing some things in a few areas. I think we can fix this and be higher up the grid tomorrow.”