ROKiT BMW is experiencing a dream season within the World Superbike Championship. Final 12 months, the M 1000 RR wasn’t even capable of battle for podiums recurrently, however this 12 months, with the arrival of Toprak Razgatlioglu, the crew is dominating, and the rider has already set a report of 13 consecutive victories. Workforce principal Shaun Muir stays cautious, regardless of acknowledging that expectations have been far exceeded.
The Brit mirrored on the season up to now, stating to the championship’s web site that the turning level in expectations was the Barcelona spherical: ‘We’re having to pinch ourselves and preserve our ft on the bottom. We began off in fairly a measured vogue popping out of the winter checks in December, coming to Portimao in January. I believe Toprak’s confidence was tremendous excessive already at that time so after we went to Australia, we had a mechanical DNF which actually upset all people as a result of we simply didn’t anticipate it. We got here out of Australia with fairly a bit to realize after which going to Barcelona was only a sensational change in our expectations’.
BMW’s preliminary expectations have been enormously exceeded, Muir admitted: ‘If you happen to requested what our expectations earlier than the season began had been, we’d’ve mentioned ending within the high three and profitable six races would’ve been a superb goal for Toprak. I believe everybody may see the goal bar was getting lifted increased and better and, particularly after there have been some elementary moments; the primary one being the efficiency at Barcelona which was fairly sensational on a predominately Ducati monitor. Equally, going to Misano and doing what he did there, in what was most likely Ducati’s yard, was a shift within the tide actually and that momentum’s carried on and right here we’re on this place the place it’s simply type of completely unthinkable. We’re redefining our scope and aligning everybody and attempting to maintain our ft on the bottom’.
Concerning the important thing moments of the season up to now, the crew chief commented: ‘I’ll provide you with two highlights they usually’re fairly obscure ones for completely completely different causes […]. We had a tough December take a look at due to the entire timing of Toprak having the ability to experience the BMW. We had a second in Valencia. We had been nonetheless fairly uncertain, however Toprak made a courageous resolution to maneuver away from Yamaha onto this bundle. It was actually at Valencia the place his eyes widened and thought, «Are you aware what? I’ve made the fitting resolution. I do know we are able to make this bike work; I do know we are able to make this bundle work, what now we have now could be adequate». That was the primary one […]. The second was clearly that incredible experience to come back again and beat Nicolò [Bulega] in Barcelona. […]. Popping out of that occasion, the race time in race 1 and race 2 of Toprak’s had been an identical inside a number of tenths of a second in total race time. That was a sensational efficiency from him, and it simply made us realise that we’ve received such a expertise’.
