Tom Sykes (BMW M-1000RR) – Behind Jonathan Rea, the Englishman is the second most successful driver who is still active and with 34 victories is just ahead of Chaz Davies with 32 in the statistics. He has never won on BMW before.

Where does BMW stand before the first race in 2021?

When BMW announced the new M-1000RR early last season, it became clear to many viewers why Michael van der Mark had signed with the blue-and-white team beforehand. We published the first official pictures of the promising weapon on our website on September 24th, 2020. Surprisingly and certainly also very disappointing for the Dutchman, this bike was missing in the fall and BMW even did not even take part in the November tests in Jerez with Tom Sykes. It wasn’t until December that Michael van der Mark was allowed to sit down on his new work device for the first time and do a few laps on a test track near Marseille in horrible temperatures. The German-English team was also the last to go to the racetrack for tests in the winter half-year.

We won’t know for about two weeks whether the rather gloomy look from “Magic Michael” in the BMW box is a bad sign for the start of the season. Waiting from mid-October to spring until he was allowed to hit the racetrack for the first time in the new BMW was definitely a tough test of patience for the man from Gouda (© BMW Motorrad WorldSBK).

The loners – already in the second year since their return
Hardly anyone understood why BMW had omitted the Aragon tests last year, at which they were the only ones absent. Instead, they tested with Sykes and Laverty on the S-10000RR at the Lausitzring. Promptly, the two had absolutely no chance in the only double race in WorldSBK history in the first Corona year. Quite a few in the paddock made fun of the blue-whites and their “wrong strategy”. After the second year since their return, they were again the last works team to take to the track in 2021. It sounded confident in Jerez de la Frontera and then Barcelona, but in Aragon everyone seemed to have their problems.

Michael van der Mark in Aragon on the new M-1000RR – the Dutchman’s test program in Motorland was so full of component and functional tests that, according to him, there was not even time to chase a fast lap. After perfect preparation, this definitely doesn’t sound like it (© BMW Motorrad WorldSBK).

The man from Huddersfield and his brand colleagues – in Aragon, with an astonishingly long deficit
With Tom Sykes, everything outside the top 3 is alarming after a time chase. Not for nothing did he inherit the title of “Mister Superpole” from Troy Corser after his resignation. His former teammate Jonathan Rea also described him as a real animal over a fast lap. If you consider that Eugene Laverty is also one of the best in this discipline, BMW fans must be worried before the season in Aragon starts. At Magny-Cours, Eugene and Tom were on pole and P2. Before they fell together in Turn 1 due to the Englishman’s mistake, the two were among the favourites for the podium. Now, as the following summary of the Aragon test times with the BMW drivers in red letters shows, they are astonishingly far behind with Jonas Folger.

The overview of the Aragon tests until May 7th, excluding the HRC Honda times (as not disclosed):
1. Jonathan Rea (GB), Kawasaki, 1’48.528 (absolute lap record from 2020: 1’48.860 by J. Rea)
2. Scott Redding (GB), Ducati, 1’48.780
3. Alex Lowes (GB), Kawasaki, 1’49.182
4. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (I), Ducati, 1’49.205
5. Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha), 1’49.439
6. Chaz Davies (GB), Ducati, 1’49.610 min
7. Toprak Razgatlioglu (TR), Yamaha, 1’49.763
8. Tom Sykes (GB), BMW, 1’4.,857
9. Andrea Locatelli (I), Yamaha, 1’50.257
10. Eugene Laverty (IRL), BMW, 1’50.604
11. Michael van der Mark (NL), BMW, 1’50.781
12. Jonas Folger (D), BMW, 1’50.815
13. Axel Bassani (I), Ducati, 1’51.146
14. Kohta Nozane (JAP), Yamaha, 1’51.277
15. Isaac Vinales (E), Kawasaki, 1’51.724
16. Chris Ponsson (Alstare Yamaha), 1’52.269

Jonas Folger on the new BMW – according to his own statement, his goal is initially to achieve top ten results and, if possible, to set a few accents over the course of the season. Much of his performance will depend on the performance of his bike (© BMW Motorrad WorldSBK).

Can BMW turn the tide and fight at the front?

With the works team and the two private teams, you can hear a lot of positive things from the drivers about the new situation at BMW with now four drivers on the new M-1000RR. Conversely, Jonas Folger was quite perplexed after the Aragon tests as to his clear deficit. We are traditionally at the last when it comes to jumping to conclusions from test times. Too often journalists make the same mistake in this regard every year, see before WSBK kick-off Australia last year and MotoGP in Losail almost 2 months ago. Except for our side, Johann Zarco was hardly mentioned seriously before the first race of the prototypes, but the fast Frenchman promptly returned to Europe from Qatar as World Championship leader. We hope we’re wrong, but we’re still sceptical about the first few laps at BMW. Together with their fans, we would still be happy if they could fight for podium places again in the third year since their return to the WSBK.

The new BMW M-1000RR is supposed to solve the problems the blue-whites had with their bike since they returned to the factory. Some sceptics doubt this, also because BMW’s pre-season preparations, with the very late start of the test, raised a number of questions.

>Aragon preview: see separate report on this page.

Tom Sykes and Eugene Laverty photographed by us on the grid in Aragon in April 2019 – a year later they became brand colleagues. Before the start of the 2021 season, the two are among the biggest question marks in the WSBK. The latter especially because Laverty was only able to ride his M-1000RR for the first time at the last minute.

Unless otherwise stated, this applies to all images (© WorldSBK).