03/09/21 
Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours

The BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team today returned to on-track action for Round 8 of the World Superbike Championship at Magny-Cours, France. This morning’s opening session of the weekend saw mixed conditions with rain in the early stages with most riders opting to sit out the start of FP1. Michael van der Mark was fast out the box for the final moments in FP1 as he set a lap time of 1’38.542, putting him in P2. Tom Sykes in the drying conditions placed himself in P10. 

As the afternoon approached track conditions improved which meant we had a full dry session for FP2. Unfortunately, in early stages Sykes suffered a technical issue which lost him some valuable track time. Despite the issue Tom was able to get back out on track to set some fast laps which put him in P6 overall for the day. Teammate van der Mark again had pace in the opening minutes of the practice and was sat in the top 3 places for majority of the session. Unluckily Michael also suffered a technical issue which meant he missed the closing moments in FP2, finishing P10 overall. 

“It was a complicated day really. FP1 was reduced to a 15-minute session by the time the circuit had dried out and we got slicks in, but we know we have pace in the wet as we showed that from last year. In FP2, we had a few unexplained technical issues which the guys quickly overcame. Mickey set some fast laps early on but missed the last 5 minutes critically. Tom missed the first 5 / 10 minutes and then set some solid laps in at the end. I think +0.600 covers the top 10 places so we are very close to the front. I think it’s a good job by the guys and we look forward to tomorrow where the weather looks clearer, so hopefully we will see some dry races.”

“Session one was obviously not too valuable, so the plan was to get our head down for session 2 but unfortunately, we did have a little bit of an issue with the bike but luckily I was able to get back to the pits. The guys did a fantastic job of turning it around and getting me back out there, so we had to miss a little bit of our schedule out and ultimately, we did have to compromise our plan. The good thing was that we were still in the top 6, but for sure we will look to improve on this tomorrow and keep working to get into the top 5.”

“To be honest this day has not been that bad. This morning we had to wait until the track was dry and when we had a dry line, I felt fast on the bike and had a good feeling with the BMW M 1000 RR. In FP2, I started really well but struggled with stopping the bike as it felt a bit nervous, so we tried to solve that. Towards the end of the session with a fresh tyre I made a mistake when on a good lap, and then unfortunately we had a mechanical issue right at the end of the session. But overall, I am feeling good with the bike. We haven’t changed too many things, so the base of the bike feels good. We just need to make the bike a little more stable on braking.”