15/10/21 
Circuito San Juan Villicum

The BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team today welcomed a return to the San Juan Villicum circuit in Argentina for round 13 of the FIM Superbike World Championship. Free Practice 1 was delayed this morning due to technical issues however track action soon resumed with Michael van der Mark setting the pace in the early stages of the session, despite the sandy conditions. As the grip improved throughout the opening session, the lap times did, too. Michael went on to put himself in P13 (1’40.138) with Eugene Laverty placing in P17 (1’41.288) at the end of FP1.

In the second and final free practice session of the day, both BMW Motorrad riders improved on their lap times set from this morning. Michael van der Mark on his BMW M 1000RR finished in P14 (1’39.323) with Eugene Laverty just behind him in P15 (1’39.526) on combined results.

“FP1 And FP2 has been difficult for us today, especially for Michael. He was pretty quick for the opening 20 minutes of FP1 when the track was dusty but couldn’t make much of an improvement as the session went on. We made some minor changes between FP1 and FP2 but we didn’t see any benefits from that and couldn’t seem to get him moving in the right direction. The guys have unanimously agreed that we need to have a rethink on everything tonight.

Eugene had a reasonable start and in actual fact he is probably the happier of the two riders at the moment. Even after FP2 he got a good benefit from the SCX tyre which he put in for the last 15 minutes and set his fastest lap on. He felt there was improvements with that so he is feeling in better condition at the moment. Both riders need to make steps tomorrow. I think a good night sleep and some hard work overnight from the mechanics and crew chiefs and the guys will find some setting and FP3 will be better.”

“It’s been a bit of a struggle today; we have seemed to find some limitations on the BMW M 1000 RR. This morning we went out and the track was a bit sandy, but we kept riding to clean the track and ended up using only one set of tyres the whole session, so we were expecting a little more in FP2. We seemed to struggle to get the bike to turn and missed some flow around this circuit. We have a lot of things to improve for tomorrow but I’m pretty sure the boys will be on it.”

“FP1 this morning was a difficult practice as the track was dirty, so it was a case of lapping laps to clean the surface. I was happy with our performance in FP2, I felt more comfortable on the bike and was riding much better after we made some changes. We still need to work on the agility of the bike around the twisty corners and that’s the goal for tomorrow.”