Michael van der Mark: “BMW and Ducati are ahead!” / World Superbike Championship

Phillip Island and Barcelona were race tracks where BMW had never done well before. But this year was completely different: Toprak Razgatlioglu had two wins and two more top-three finishes, while his ROKiT teammate Michael van der Mark also showed a strong fourth place in the second race in Barcelona.

Remarkable: In this sixth race of the season, Ducati and BMW pilots took the first five places, with the Japanese manufacturer just behind in sixth place and Kawasaki boss Alex Lowes.

“It’s hard to say whether what we saw (in Barcelona) – Ducati and BMW with strong riders – is the true balance of power,” said van der Mark in his column on racesport.nl. “Barcelona has been one of the most difficult tracks so far, so we were all a bit confused. Now we had two different types of tracks and we were ahead on both. I think it’s clear that with Ducati we are one of the strongest.”

Assen, the Dutchman’s home race, will be the third event of the 2024 World Superbike Championship.

“I don’t care that Assen comes so early in the season. We are strong and we have already completed two tracks where we were not very good before. The fact that we don’t have a test at the moment doesn’t matter, because now we have a good base with BMW,” emphasized the 31-year-old from the cheese city of Gouda. “It looks like we’re on the right track now. I hope we can get on the podium.”

Van der Mark moved from Yamaha to BMW after the 2020 season, when the R1 was turning into a winning motorcycle and the S1000RR had even better success. “I believe in this project,” emphasized van der Mark at the time. “I believe I made the right decision, even if it will take time to pay off.”

In the fourth year this seems to be true.