BMW’s WorldSBK programme in the winter tests was not looking quite as good as some of the results they got in real races at Motorland Aragon this weekend.
A second long race fourth for Sykes and fifth for his team-mate Michael van der Mark were high points for the whole new M1000RR project, complete with relatively vast downforce winglets on the fairing side panels.
It was not a good Sunday start for Sykes, who no-scored, but fourth in race two after a run through some big names from tenth on the grid was a strong result in almost any way it can be looked at.
“A little bit of a bittersweet day, obviously,” the 2013 World Champion told bikesportnews.com. “The Superpole race didn’t go to plan at all, and unfortunately left us in a compromised starting position for the last race.
“So, going into the last race I left the grid and I thought, if I was a gambling man I’m going on slicks, but considering what happened in Superpole race, I went for the intermediates and went with the majority of the field. But holy shit, did that circuit dry out fast. Scott did a bold move and got away with it and it paid off. I’m sure his race was a breeze. I was left just to enjoy the race finally. With intermediate tyres obviously my race was a little bit different. I was just trying to understand the package at the beginning. I saw the guys pushing on.”
Sykes took it steady to start but built into his task as he grew in confidence. “Considering the tyres, I just kind of built up speed and let the race come to me,” said Sykes. “When I got to the back of the group, we definitely had speed to go for the podium. Unfortunately I got a bit of a difficult time getting past Toprak, which was a shame because he was really suffering, but to pass him on the brakes with an intermediate front tyre is difficult.
He’s certainly good on the brakes. Then after that, I made the gap again but just asking too much from the tyre. Then a bit of a problem behind my teammate, Michael. So overall, the pace I was there.”
This early in the new M’s real race development Sykes is quietly pleased by progress. “ I have to look at the positive that on intermediate tyres we’re very close to a strong manufacturer, Kawasaki. Like I said yesterday, considering the time from where I was last year to the winner, and where we are as a team and BMW this year to the winner is a completely different showing. So credit to those boys.
“This is the first weekend for the new M1000RR and there’s some positives to be taken. A front row start, Michael fifth in the sprint race, me fourth in this race, more speed from the engine. I think everybody saw that. So, a lot of good positives. My focus now is to build on those. Aragon was a big challenge for us last year. Estoril was a royal pain in my ass last year, so I really want to go to Estoril and try to maintain this momentum and just really turn around our mixed fortunes.”
The new bike seems to using tyres better than the old one. Part rider nursing them well and part the new bike. “It’s combined,” said Sykes. “It’s a package thing, but maybe more so myself and my experience because obviously my teammate was on the same package but he was a little bit more excited at the beginning of the race. It was just two different approaches.
“With the way that the circuit dried out, I just took a slightly different approach which worked out good. Like I said, the laps where I got stuck behind Toprak, it meant I needed to do three or four to get back on the group. Then when I was behind Michael again, it let Alex go. I just couldn’t do the extra. So I think from a calculation point of view, if it was a time trial race it was good.
“Just struggled towards the end after those hard laps trying to make the gap again. It was just to manage because the intermediate rear is really quite a soft compound. So I was actually – and again, credit to Pirelli because considering how soft the compound is, it really stayed quite stable. It’s been 53’s for me, which is not bad after all. It stayed together over 18 fairly dry laps.”
