Michael van der Mark has confirmed he will remain with the ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK team in 2025.
Van der Mark first arrived at BMW from Yamaha in 2021, meaning he will line up for his fifth WorldSBK season for the Bavarian marque next year.
Van der Mark's time at BMW has not been smooth, the Dutchman having suffered several injuries in the past few years, most memorably a vicious femur fracture sustained in a crash in Assen last year and caught in gruesome detail by the world feed TV cameras.
“I am very, very happy and honoured to continue with BMW," van der Mark said. "I am really happy that especially after the two difficult years they still have the trust in me and I think that this year’s results are showing improvements."
Van der Mark, who became the first race winner for BMW in WorldSBK for almost a decade when he won a wet Superpole Race at Portimao in 2021, has been putting together a solid season for BMW in 2024. He has so far avoided injury, and has worked well with new teammate Toprak Razgatlioglu to progress, himself, with the M1000 RR. The Dutchman has so far taken a best result of fourth place at the Catalan Round, previously considered one of the most difficult for the hard-on-tyres BMW due to the high-degradation nature of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
"I’m really happy with how the team’s working, how the BMW M1000 RR is working and how we are still improving it," van der Mark said. "So it’s fantastic to be able to stay. This also gives me a lot of confidence for the rest of the season. I’m ready to keep building our momentum and be even more ready for next year.”
The van der Mark announcement was the third rider confirmation to emerge from last weekend's WorldSBK Emilia-Romagna Round, after Alex Lowes was retained by Kawasaki for its new Bimota WorldSBK rebrand, and Axel Bassani made the same decision to stay in the Provec team for the beginning of its new era.
