BMW Motorrad:

Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport rider Ruben Xaus took a superb ninth place in the second Superbike World Championship race at Donington Park this afternoon. In sunny conditions, Ruben fought his way up through the field from the fourth row of the grid to take his third top ten finish of the season. This followed his 15th place in race one and showed that he and the team have recovered from their recent poor results. Ruben’s team mate Troy did not enjoy such a good day. A crash in race one, when he found a false neutral, and general lack of grip meant a real struggle in race two. But despite the grip problems, Troy kept going and managed to finish the race, albeit outside the points.

American Ben Spies (Yamaha) won both 23-lap races today and closed the gap on series leader Noriyuki Haga (Ducati) to just fourteen points. And with Haga injured in race two, and facing a possible lengthy layoff due to a back injury, Spies should be able to take advantage of the situation in the next few races. Max Biaggi (Aprilia) took runner-up spot in race one, with Haga third and and Leon Haslam (Honda) fourth. Second to Spies in a race two was Haslam, with Michel Fabrizio (Ducati) third and Shane Byrne (Ducati) fourth.

Ruben – Race 1: 15th, Race 2: 9th
That was a tough weekend and I really know that I have done two hard races today. At the moment, the bike is very demanding physically and mentally and it requires a lot of concentration. I am happy to get a top ten finish, but I would be more happy if Troy and I would be getting top six finishes for sure.

Today our bike was good in the fast corners, but we lost out on the slow ones. My riding style is more aggressive than Troy and for that you have to be 100% fit. Troy is not 100% fit yet, so he is having a harder time getting the bike round the track at the speeds he would like to do. I see positive signs ahead and I am looking forward to the next two tests.

Troy – Race 1: DNF, Race 2: 20th
For me, it was a terrible day and not such a good weekend. All weekend, I have being having a problem because of the lack of grip and today it was as bad as it has ever been. The bike felt hard to ride today and I got a lot of wheelspin and found it hard to stop it wheelieing. In race one, the bike just jumped out of gear when I tried to backshift from third to second and I was forced into the gravel and had to lay the bike down. Fortunately, I didn’t hurt myself at all, but it was an unnecessary crash. Race two was all about grip, or lack of it. But I kept going, even though I was losing places, because I wanted to give the team as much telemetry info as possible.

Berti Hauser (BMW Motorrad Motorsport Director)
This weekend has given us a lot of surprises. We were surprised that the weather was not as expected, or forecasted. Happily the conditions were dry for both races, which means that we have a huge package of information and data to take back to our workshops. Regarding the results: we know where we are in the rankings. We know what technical issues we have to improve and we will address them for the next tests.

I am happy that Ruben managed a top ten and would like to compliment Troy on bringing the bike home in race two despite difficult circumstances. We don’t have any deep disappointment this weekend. We realise that we have a lot of work to do and we need to keep improving every time Ruben and Troy go out on the bike.