17/10/21
Circuito San Juan Villicum
The first race of the FIM Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) Argentina round ended with a top six result for the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team. Michael van der Mark (NED) completed race one at the ‘Circuito San Juan Villicum’ (ARG) in sixth place with his BMW M 1000 RR. Eugene Laverty (IRL), standing in again for Tom Sykes (GBR), was also on track for the top eight before falling back to 13th position during the closing stage of the race. San Juan is hosting the penultimate round of the 2021 WorldSBK season.
In Superpole on Saturday morning, van der Mark qualified seventh with Laverty in twelfth. At the start, van der Mark shortly fell back but soon was back to seventh while Laverty moved up three positions to exit the first turns in ninth. Laverty then moved up to eighth on lap five, right behind van der Mark. The two BMW riders remained in those positions until Laverty fell back to tenth around the halfway point of the race. Van der Mark closed the gap to the top six and claimed sixth spot on lap eleven, and that was the position he was in when taking the chequered flag after 21 laps. Meanwhile, Laverty fought with blunt weapons and crossed the line in 13th position.