The next stop for the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team in the FIM Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) is Magny-Cours (FRA). Tom Sykes (GBR) and Markus Reiterberger (GER) will contest the final European races of the 2019 WorldSBK season there with their BMW S 1000 RRs this weekend (27th to 29th September).
Magny-Cours will host the eleventh race event of the year. In the further final spurt of the season, the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team will head to San Juan in Argentina for the twelfth round of the season, before the season finale is held in Qatar at the end of October.
Quotes ahead of the races at Magny-Cours.
Marc Bongers, BMW Motorrad Motorsport Director: “We’re looking forward to the final European races of the season. Our stats in Magny-Cours aren’t particularly good, but we are optimistic that we can improve them with the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team. We also have more new parts that should add to the performance. These updates affect the engine performance and the frame. We hope that the weather will let us show this potential.”
Shaun Muir, Team Principal BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team: “We’re looking forward to going to Magny-Cours. We feel confident that we can make another little step for Tom and Markus. The conditions expected for the weekend are quite changeable, 50 to 60 percent chance of rain on Friday, Saturday and Sunday so we need to be prepared for that. Tom is feeling pretty confident. In the past he has been very strong at the Magny-Cours circuit, and as we all know, Markus won the European Superstock championship there last year, so he has good memories of the circuit. So we go with some optimism and hopefully we will have the chance of a podium.”
Tom Sykes: “I’m looking forward to heading to France and to racing at Magny-Cours. I feel that the chassis of the BMW S 1000 RR could work really well in a couple of the sectors there. I’ve always enjoyed riding on the track layout there so hopefully we can utilise that to our advantage. Of course, there is a very long straight there which we can’t deny we probably will face some difficulties on. But I’m looking forward to working with the team again and going in the direction which we have done all year, which is slowly working towards where we need to be. Unfortunately, the weather forecast does not look particularly welcoming, but on a positive, we’ve also had very strong results with the new RR in wet conditions. So we’ll go there and try to make as strong a weekend as possible.”
Markus Reiterberger: “Magny-Cours is a cool track. I won the title in the FIM European Superstock 1000 Championship there last year which is why I have great memories of this track. It wasn’t an easy track for us, but we did really well there, and I think that the new RR will be even better on the track. I hope that I won’t be far behind my team-mate and, if possible, will be able to ride on a par with him. My primary goal is to improve my race pace, and I hope that we will take another step forward in terms of tuning, like we did at Portimão. I’m looking forward to the weekend and I would like to have a good final weekend in Europe before heading overseas.”
