The next first for BMW Motorrad Motorsport: WorldSBK heads to Navarra for the first time.

Munich.
For BMW Motorrad Motorsport, the FIM Superbike World
Championship presents a first for the second time in two weeks.
After the debut of ‘Autodrom Most’ (CZE) on the calendar, now
‘Circuito de Navarra’ in northern Spain will host the WorldSBK for
the first time. This coming weekend (20th to 22nd August), the
seventh round of the 2021 season will be held at the track. BMW
Motorrad Motorsport had the opportunity to familiarise itself with
the new track back in June. The BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team with
riders Tom Sykes (GBR) and Michael van der Mark (NED), as well as
Bonovo MGM Racing and Jonas Folger (GER) completed a test at the
track with their BMW M 1000 RR Superbikes.

 

The ‘Circuito de Navarra’ is located near Los Arcos in the regional
community of Navarra, around 60 kilometres southwest of Pamplona. The
modern racetrack, just under 4 kilometres in length, was opened in
June 2010. Since then, various car and motorcycle championships have
held events at the track, including the Spanish Superbike Championship ESBK.

 

Quotes ahead of the Navarra round.

 

Marc Bongers, BMW Motorrad Motorsport Director:
“We’re already really looking forward to the race weekend at
Navarra. We got an initial impression of the track during testing in
June. It’s rather untypical of Superbike tracks, and first gear is
needed in several places. Now we need to see what awaits us there –
also in terms of the temperatures in August. We can use the
information and base set-up from testing to prepare the BMW M 1000 RR
for Superpole and the races. We confirmed our good race pace at Most,
and the goal is to convert this into corresponding results at Navarra
so we need to be strong in Superpole to get a good start position for
the races. I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate the new
parents Michael and Nadieh – and welcome to the world Mason van der Mark!”

 

Shaun Muir, Team Principal BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team:
“We finished Most in a reasonably strong situation. We can
still see the progression of the BMW M 1000 RR. We already had a test
at Navarra and we feel we have a good base setting. It has been a busy
time for our riders since Most – congratulations to Michael and Nadieh
on the birth of their first baby boy, Mason! Also last week, we tested
with Tom at Barcelona which gave him a good, positive outcome. So all
in all, we have got a lot of things to look forward to going to
Navarra. The team can start FP1 in a strong position and hopefully we
can carry on the progression and aim towards the podium.”

 

Tom Sykes, BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team: “I’m looking
forward to keeping the momentum going, with the races now coming quite
fast. So we aim to build on what we understood when we were testing in
Navarra some weeks ago – and also recently on the back of a test at
Barcelona which was in very hot conditions. Obviously, it looks like
Navarra will be warm. It’s a new circuit again for everybody so it
will be interesting to see how the weekend goes, but ultimately the
plan is to continue working with what we found in testing with the BMW
M 1000 RR and hopefully we can transfer that kind of set-up into the
hot track at Navarra and keep improving our results all of the time. I
also want to take this opportunity to say massive congratulations to
Michael and Nadieh on their fabulous new addition to the family, their
little baby boy. That’s a massive achievement in life and I wish them
all the best.”

 

Michael van der Mark, BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team: “It
has been an exciting time since I returned from Most. On Thursday
evening after the race weekend, Mason was born and it is great be able
to spend some days with the family before heading to the next round.
Now we will race at Navarra, and it is always good to have a new track
on the calendar. We have been testing there and it is quite different
compared to other tracks. It is really narrow and overtaking can be
hard. It’s good that we have done a test there, even if our bike has
changed quite a lot since then, so I am curious to find out how it
will work. The first goal for the weekend is to qualify a little bit
better. In Most I was a bit unlucky in qualifying with some traffic, I
must say, but we’ve seen that for example on Saturday and Sunday we
made a huge improvement on lap times and also pace-wise so it seems
that we really found a good way with the set-up of the bike. Hopefully
we will find that right set-up at Navarra pretty soon so we are right
at the point from the start.”

 

Jonas Folger, Bonovo MGM Racing: “We got to know the
Navarra track during the two-day test in June. It’s not an easy track
and it will be a challenge, but we will give it our all, and I hope
that we can improve and find our way to the front. The most important
goal for us all is to bring home points this weekend.”

 

 

 

*Information based on testing