BMW Motorrad PR:

The seventh round of this year’s Superbike World Championship will not going down in Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport history as one to remember. Starting from their lowest grid positions this season was always going to be difficult for riders Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus and it is to their huge credit that they brought their bikes home in both races. Troy and Ruben fought hard in the pair of 21-lappers and managed to score just one point, thanks to Troy’s fifteenth place in race one.

American Ben Spies (Yamaha) continued his weekend of domination by taking both victories today – much to the delight of the home fans. Carlos Checa (Honda) was second in race one, with Michel Fabrizio (Ducati) third.  Behind Spies in race two was Fabrizio again, with Jonathan Rea (Honda) third.

Troy – Race 1: 15th, Race 2: 17th
There’s no disguising that this has been a hard weekend for us all here at Miller. Although we had some difficulties during the weekend, my main problem today was my right shoulder. I damaged the ligament between the shoulder and the collarbone in the Monza crash and it has not recovered yet.

Race one was hard enough, but I just ran out of strength in race two and had a hard time keeping going. Every time I braked or changed direction, I felt that there wasn’t enough strength to move the bike and that tired me out. I also had some problems with the tyre moving on the rim in race two and that didn’t help us either.

Since Monza, the bikes have been on the road (well plane actually) to Kyalami and then on to USA, so it’ll be good to get them back to the workshops, analyse what’s been going on and then make the right improvements. Hard work for sure, but I’ve no doubt we’ll get there.

Ruben – Race 1: 21st, Race 2: 16th
We didn’t think that this season would be easy, but perhaps today was harder then it should’ve been. Of course we began the races from the last rows of the grid and that made life difficult. Towards the end of the first race my lap times were consistent and good and pretty close to the guys fighting for top ten places.

My bike didn’t feel right in race one, but it felt better in race two, but my grid position held me up. Between race one and race two my mechanics did a superb job by changing engines in such a short time and I want to thank them for the good and fast work – especially because the bike ran perfectly.

Berti Hauser (BMW Motorrad Motorsport Director)
For us, today was more or less the same as all weekend, but there are three aspects we have to consider. First, there is our disappointment, because we have been so much better this season. Second is that we found a lot of surprises we didn’t expect with the way the bike was working at this track with these tyres. Third is the huge amount of info we received, which will go back for analysis.

Our recent timeline has not been good for us, because the bikes went from Monza to South Africa and then straight on to USA, so there has been no opportunity for us to collate all the data in our workshops, figure out what changes are needed and do the work required.

At least now we head back to Europe and can work at home and make some modifications in time for Misano. This season’s pace is going faster and faster and we must fight to keep up. Today’s result was one to forget, but I’m proud of the whole team for the hard work they always put in and the motivation to improve by them and the riders is as strong as ever.