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It has been a challenging season at times for Ruben Xaus (BMW Motorrad Motorsport) but the tall rider from Catalunya was on great form at Brno, qualifying better in Superpole than he has ever done on his S 1000RR, before going out on Sunday to take a fifth place in race one, only eight seconds from a win.

That top five race result was his best finish yet for BMW, as he looked like more like the Ruben we have seen in previous years, a rider who has taken 11 full WSBK race wins in previous seasons. The only downside for him was a fall in race two, while sitting third and firmly on course for a podium, but he still moved up in the rankings to 13th thanks to his 11 points from race one. Ruben was particularly pleased to have wiped out the memories of last year's Brno weekend, when he broke his right leg in the first race. His fall in race two was simply a case of pushing hard to keep his podium place, eventually losing a finish of any kind.

Said Ruben, shortly before sitting down to watch Spain win the World Cup final, "Overall this weekend has been a really positive one for me. I have been running consistently at the front. In the first race I scored my best ever result on the BMW S 1000 RR so far. The second race was a different story. I crashed in turn one at quite high speed. The impact was heavy, and I am happy I am okay. It was clearly my fault. I was fighting for third for a long time, and I absolutely wanted to achieve my first podium with BMW. I was holding a consistent gap over Fabrizio for most of the race, but the lap before I crashed I saw he was gaining on me and I simply pushed too hard. The bike is working really well now, and I want to thank my entire crew."