Michael van der Mark completed his first season with BMW on the podium, after a hard fought wet race at Mandalika.

In an often chequered year for the official BMW Motorrad factory squad, many of the ups were created by van der Mark, in his first year on the new M1000RR model. One win, three podiums all in, and sixth in the championship. Top BMW rider to boot.

His last top three finish came in the wet final race of the whole year, after battling and beating the new champion Toprak Razgatlioglu into fourth place. Not bad for a guy who was very ill at the beginning of the weekend, with suspected food poisoning. He was only a little ill at the end of the weekend.

“I’m still quite sick, to be honest,” VDM said in the post race media conference. “Not sick, but I just can’t eat. So this morning in race one, at the end of the race I had nothing more. I was really pissed off, because I thought I could stay in front of [Andrea] Locatelli or battle with [Axel] Bassani, but I had just no power left.

“I haven’t been eating for the last three days or so,” he continued. “So, that’s been quite a big struggle. P6 in the morning wasn’t that bad, and then luckily at the end of the day we got the race in the wet conditions. This track in the wet conditions with slicks like this morning has already so much grip, it’s incredible. So when the track was really wet for race two, I knew it was going to be fun. We had a lot of confidence and I think that’s what we showed. We had some really good battles on track. That’s only possible when the grip is there in the wet conditions.”

In the wet race, as van der Mark came through on the leading bunch, he and Bassani touched, and the mid-race investigation by the authorities came up with nothing to take action about.

“To be honest, I got out of the corner and we were battling,” he explained. “I got out and in the wet conditions you’re always trying to find grip. We were both struggling to find it and I ran a bit wide and tried to not go on the curb because the white line in the curbs had not grip. Also my bike just ran wide. It’s a shame because it’s not how it should end. I’m really sorry for him because the last thing you want to do is take someone out. I think it’s just a combination what happened, the battle we had and trying to find the grip on the exit.”

VDM was another impressed by how good the wet weather grip was first time out on a track that was losing small stones form its top surface at times early in the weekend.

“The track conditions during the race were incredible,” he confirmed. “Some places looks like we had standing water, but even in these places the grip was phenomenal. This shows that the track can handle a lot of water. They delayed the first start which is totally understandable because there was just too much rain falling, but we can see that it’s quite good. We can race quite soon again after that. I think it’s also for everyone here, a learning curve. It was a good race and we enjoyed it.

“It was because we usually are a little bit too slow in the dry conditions and in the wet conditions we are more competitive. So, for me it was a lot more fun in the wet. In the wet conditions you don’t use the full maximum of the bike. In the wet conditions, you have more feeling and confidence. So, in a wet track with a better bike which is not as good as the others, if you have a good feeling you can improve and fight for podiums. In the dry, the level was so high it’s nearly impossible.”

After the end of a debut BMW season that ended up a couple of races short of the expected 39 for everyone, van der Mark rated his first year on the white bikes.

“I think not as many podiums as we hoped, of course, but the Superbike championship this year has been so close, so tight. So many riders battling for the front. Us coming with the new M1000RR, we expected more, but we can only make small steps at the time. We just need time to develop the bike. I think we made good progress during the year. As a rider, you always want, but luckily there is next year coming soon.”

What needs to be better?

“Everything needs to be better, because it’s the only way we will win,” the Dutchman admitted. “We are lacking a bit of power, and power is always easy especially on the straight. It’s all a combination, chassis and stuff like that. It’s all a big combination.”

With an Indonesian grandmother van der Mark had a vested interest in the Mandalika round, a real feeling of connection, from however far away. “It’s really cool. Unfortunately, it’s really my first time I stay longer in Indonesia. I love the Indonesian fans. It’s funny, they found out that my grandmother was from Ambon. On social media it goes completely crazy. This one is for all my Indonesian fans. I’m just quarter Indonesian, but I’m really proud of it.”

Van der Mark knows just some special Indonesian words, as he explains. “Yeah, but not so many good words. I just know all the food. And some bad words!”

Next year sees van der Mark take on the challenge of having Scott Redding as a teammate, so how does he feel about that?

“I don't know,” he said. “Scott is a fast guy, but so is Tom. Scott has the experience on the Ducati, so hopefully he can give us some inside information about what we can try on the BMW. I think this year we have shown that Tom and I, the results are quite similar. So I think at the moment we take the maximum from the bike and we really need to develop the package.”