Munich. 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.”