After their long flyway trip to Australia and Qatar, Team BMW Motorrad Motorsport take the relatively short trip from their base in southern Germany to the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia, Spain, for round three of this year's Superbike World Championship. The team have now been able to continue the hard work in their own workshops and prepare themselves for the first of three European rounds and one test. Being so far from home and their workshops during the first two rounds held up progress somewhat, but the team learnt a lot on the long trip and will put this experience to good effect next weekend.
"For us, as a new team, the first two rounds were tough, but I am really pleased with what we did," said two-time World Superbike champion Troy Corser. "There's lots to do of course, but I think we showed a lot of people that we mean business. If it wasn't for the new Superpole system, I'm sure I would've qualified higher up the grid and that would have probably meant better results.
Being so far from the workshops has been a real disadvantage for us all, but now we are back in Europe, I'm sure that we'll make a lot of progress. The long flyaway has certainly opened the eyes of a lot of the team members, but everybody is working great and the good progress will continue for sure."
Teammate Ruben Xaus echoed Corser's comments about being so far away from home base. "I'm happy to be back in Europe, not because I didn't like Australia and Qatar, but because we can work in the workshops and do many things we couldn't do overseas. We are at a disadvantage at every track we go to because we have no data from previous visits on this bike, so the first day of practice is trying to find a good set-up for the bike. I am very happy with the way everybody is working and looking forward to racing the S 1000 RR in my home country for the very first time."