Garrett Gerloff says he is looking forward to getting back on track for the final three rounds of the 2023 WorldSBK Championship season after spearheading BMW’s strongest race weekend of the year at Magny-Cours.

In a year that has seen BMW on the back foot compared with the factory Ducati, Yamaha and Kawasaki efforts, Gerloff - the only fresh face in the team’s camp for 2023 - has steadily emerged as arguably its quickest candidate in recent rounds.

It was a status he successfully consolidated on French soil with a surprise run to pole position on Saturday morning, a first for the Bonovo Racing team in WorldSBK some three years after Bonovo team manager Eugene Laverty did the same at Magny-Cours in 2020.

Gerloff would go on to impress come the races too with a season’s best run to fourth in Race 1 and a fifth place in Race 2, the latter result achieved from tenth on the grid after he was skittled out of the Superpole Race by BMW stablemate Scott Redding.

“I’m trying my best! The whole team has been trying and pushing the best we can and to finally make some real progress… it feels so good! 

“We’ve put so much work into it the whole time so to finally feel like we’re making real ground, and to have the first pole position for me and the team, is unbelievable. 

“I’m super happy about that. Two top-five finishes are like… maybe I was expecting a little bit more, maybe we could’ve had a podium, but you can’t do it all at once. 

“That’s something to look forward to in the next three rounds to see if can move forward a little bit more.”