Testing for the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship field got underway at the Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto on Tuesday, but without double Champion Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) and teammate Michael van der Mark – despite BMW completing one day of running in Spain. During the test, Team Principal of ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team, Shaun Muir, spoke about why BMW were testing without their race riders and what’s new on the bike for both this test and next week at Aragon.
Razgatlioglu and van der Mark flew home after the Spanish Round, with test riders Sylvain Guintoli and Marcus Reiterberger on track for the German manufacturer. Muir explained why the team opted to test without their race riders at Jerez despite preparations ramping up for 2025 already, with a particular focus on a new engine upgrade at Jerez before the team heads to Aragon where ‘El Turco’ and van der Mark will test.
Explaining the test programme for Jerez, Muir said: “One day of testing here, we’ve got Sylvain and Marcus deputising for Michael and Toprak. We have the new 2025 engine upgrade here and we basically wanted to put kilometres on those engines and do a full preparation for Aragon next week. At Aragon, we’ll have the newer items but just for today it’s engine preparation. It’s pretty much the same as what they’ve used in the test team, so the feedback is getting our riders to work with the crew chiefs and our application engineers; clearly our engineers haven’t been working in the test team, so they’ve got to find a way with that and the new settings and torque maps. It’s just a familiarisation, put some kilometres on the engine and take them to Aragon next week.”
The Team Principal also went on to discuss the Aragon test programme, going into detail about what van der Mark and Razgatlioglu will have at their disposal on Tuesday and Wednesday next week when they jump back on the M 1000 RR. Muir disclosed that there would be new aerodynamics and material to test at the Spanish venue.
Previewing the Aragon test, Muir said: “They’ll come back full of energy, hopefully. They’ve had a bit of time to recover from that fantastic weekend we’ve just had. The bikes are, by and large, complete after today with the engine upgrades in them. We’ve got some new material to test, new aerodynamics to try on the bike and it’ll be the engineers working with the application guys and starting to get that new engine really dialled in and all the characteristics that we need and what both Michael and Toprak are looking for with the engine brake feel. That’ll be the focus.”
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Source: WorldSBK.com