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Eazi Grip

Eazi-Grip supported BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team ends Misano weekend with tenth place for Michael van der Mark

The FIM Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) is at Misano on the Italian Adriatic coast, this weekend for round three of the 2021 season. Saturday proved to be a difficult day for BMW Motorrad Motorsport. Tom Sykes (GBR) and Michael van der Mark (NED) from the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team ended the opening race in eighth and tenth place. Jonas Folger (GER / Bonovo MGM Racing) finished 16th, narrowly missing out on points. Eugene Laverty (IRL), riding for the Italian RC Squadra Corse team, was unable to take part in Superpole and race one following a crash in the morning’s free practice session.

In Saturday morning’s Superpole, Sykes finished fifth on his BMW M 1000 RR to secure a spot on the second row of the grid. Van der Mark was 13th, while Folger came home 15th in Superpole. In the race itself, Sykes was running in the top six until the penultimate lap. However, he then dropped two places. Right from the word go, van der Mark set his sights on the top ten, crossing the finish line in tenth place after 21 laps of racing. Folger was 16th, missing out on the points by just one-tenth of a second.

Shaun Muir – Team Principal

“It was a very difficult day for us. I think the P6 position Tom was holding would have been a strong result for us but in the end he did not have enough tyre to hold off Bautista and Bassani, so it’s a shame he dropped to P8 as P6 would have been a good result for Tom. So, we will come back tomorrow, and we will fight again. Michael on the other hand really struggled; he didn’t look comfortable on the bike and hasn’t found the setting that he can attack with. And if he can’t attack going through the fast flowing corners he loses so much time and ends up battling with the company he was with, so he needs to work hard with his crew overnight and see what we improve on. I think overall a little bit disappointing but we will come back stronger tomorrow and hopefully we can improve on these results.”

Tom Sykes

“We got a bad start to the race today and it definitely didn’t help our track position. We are very strong in some areas of the track but with our package we still lose in the area where I normally could gain the most on people. I saw that Alvaro Bautista was coming strong in race one and I changed my way of riding while still maintaining a respectable lap time and just kept the door closed as long as I could but eventually he managed to get through and pushed me a little wide. I tried to cut back on him which was not achievable and as a result lost a further spot to Bassani. We didn’t get what we hoped for today, but overall I feel we are improving our race performance and obviously we will go back to the drawing board tonight with a slightly different set up for tomorrow.”

Michael Van Der Mark

I’m not really happy with the result. In this morning’s FP3, we made a good step forward but unfortunately I did not feel as good in qualifying. So it was P13 on the grid. I had an okay start, but I especially struggled with the front. To be honest I was just riding around with a too slow pace. Now we have to sort out some problems; so we have a lot of work to do for tomorrow.”

Sunday did not play out as hoped for the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team. The best-placed rider in race two was Michael van der Mark (NED) in tenth place. His team-mate Tom Sykes (GBR) was twelfth. Eugene Laverty (IRL / RC Squadra Corse), who was given the go-ahead by doctors after his crash on Saturday, came home in 15th place to pick up a point. He was followed home in 16th place by Jonas Folger (GER / Bonovo MGM Racing). Misano hosted round three of the 2021 FIM Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK).

Sykes started Sunday morning’s Superpole race from fifth place on the grid. He initially found himself in sixth after the start and crossed the finish line in seventh after ten laps of racing. The second-best BMW rider in the Superpole race was Laverty in 13th. Van der Mark consistently worked his way forward from 13th place, but then crashed out on the sixth lap. Folger, who was running behind him, was forced to take evasive action and consequently fell back through the field, eventually ending the Superpole race in 19th place.

Van der Mark started race two on Sunday afternoon from 14th place. He made gradual progress from lap two and crossed the finish line tenth after 21 laps. Sykes was running sixth until the sixth lap, but then dropped back to ninth after a battle with his rivals. Shortly after that, he found himself in twelfth, and went on to cross the finish line in that position. Laverty also finished in the points in 15th. Folger was 14th for long stretches of the race, before dropping back to 16th.

Shaun Muir – Team Principal

“It was a really tough weekend for us. We came here with some high expectations but in the very high grip levels we found it difficult to get Tom and Michael comfortable on the bike. We had constant front-end chatter problems. The mechanics and the team worked all weekend trying to find a good balance; we’ve worked on the bike in a lot of areas but unfortunately we couldn’t find a setting for them both. Tenth and 12th doesn’t do the effort justice. We’re a long way off where we want to be but we have a test at Navarra coming up where we can check things over and we will see how we can come back stronger from this. We will be ready and are looking forward to the test at Navarra and then our home round at Donington.” 

Tom Sykes

“To be honest, it was a difficult day. After the Superpole race we had quite a good feeling actually but we were missing in some areas and only really could finish in the top-seven, which for me is not acceptable. So we tried something with the bike for the big race, but unfortunately that was not working out. At least we got a lot of information out of it. It was a difficult race for me and we learned a lot on the back of it now, so we keep working now. After another test we are going for the next round to Donington. I would like to think we’ve got the package to fight for the race there. We need to get on top of the little issues which we have got, so we hope for another step forward with the BMW M 1000 RR. For now there will be a disappointing end of the weekend here at Misano, but we pick ourselves up and try to move on”.

Michael Van Der Mark

“I think we should not be really happy with this result. In this morning’s Superpole race I made a mistake by myself. I entered T1 way too quick and then I lost it. It was a shame because we tried something on the bike and we didn’t know if it was better or not. In race two, I had a not so great start. I had problems at the start and then I gained some positions back but unfortunately we can be really consistent but we are just too slow. It’s difficult, but it is like this now. Soon we will be testing and hopefully we find some solutions.”

Posted on Monday, June 14th, 2021 in News

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