BMW ‘Made a good step' with ‘engine performance’ - Tom Sykes

BMW M 1000 RR ‘is still very new and coming here against our competition’ - important to evaluate where the team stands in WorldSBK pecking order according to Sykes.

Robert Jones

02 Apr 2021

BMW ‘Made a good step' with ‘engine performance’ - Tom Sykes

Tom Sykes and Michael Van Der Mark complete two days of valuable testing against their competition with the all new BMW M 1000 RR bike.

The two days in Barcelona was the lone Official pre-season test for teams and riders. However, it was the second opportunity in a week for BMW after a private test at Jerez.

Sykes is joined by former Pata Yamaha rider Van Der Mark for the 2021 season, with the development of the new M 1000 RR bike a big priority after last year’s disappointing results with the S 1000 RR.

Sykes finished the test in sixth place overall, while Van Der Mark was 14th for the German manufacturer.

"It has been a very useful test. We’ve been able to find out a lot more about the new BMW M 1000 RR and we definitely gathered a lot of information," said Sykes.

"We’ve made a good step forward in terms of the engine performance and certainly a couple of other areas on the bike but I would still like to work on traction from the chassis and we are looking at a few different options already.

"For me, it was good to add two more days of testing to the bike. It is still very new and coming here against our competition, we were able to see exactly where we need to improve.

"The whole BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team has a few weeks now where we can work with the information we have gained over the past two days."

Unlike Sykes, Van Der Mark was outside the top ten for the majority of the test, but the Dutch rider focused heavily on completing as many laps as possible instead of one lap performance.

Speaking after his first Official outing with the BMW team, Van Der Mark said: "It has been good to be on track again, especially with the other competitors.

"We still have a lot of things to try and to discover on this bike especially for me. Sometimes it’s not easy but we found some positive things on the bike and there is a lot of data.

"Overall, over these two days of testing with hardly any problems which is really important for us because we could do a lot of laps in order to improve the bike for the next test."