Sykes: Podium the target for BMW for rest of 2019

Tom Sykes has confirmed BMW’s target for the rest of the 2019 World Superbike championship is to reach the podium on a consistent basis starting this weekend at Portimao.

Following the lengthy summer break, Sykes and the World Superbike championship return to action at the Portuguese round having completed a two-day test at Portimao last month.

After using the test to gain extra setup time for the Portuguese round, while trialling other setup options for the rest of the year, Sykes is confident his BMW package has the potential to finish on the rostrum at every round left in 2019.

The 2013 World Superbike champion secured a podium result at Misano, Donington Park and Laguna Seca going into the summer break, plus pole position at his home round, and is keen to maintain that run for the rest of the season.

“I am really looking forward to heading back to the Portimao circuit on the back of successful two days of testing there recently,” Sykes said. “During the test, we certainly gathered a lot of information for the set-up of the BMW S1000RR.

“Overall at the test, we tried various promises of the bike which we were not quite able to do so during the race weekends due to the restricted time. So this has proven very, very good.

“We got some positive results, so hopefully we can pick up where we left off and try to keep our run of podium places on the go. So the podium is certainly the target for the remaining races.”

Sykes has risen to eighth place in the current World Superbike riders’ standings, while just 32 points split him to fifth-placed Leon Haslam who replaced him at Kawasaki this season.

During the summer break BMW confirmed Eugene Laverty would join Sykes at the factory team for the 2020 World Superbike championship with Markus Reiterberger axed at the end of the year.