After their home round in Imola, the Althea BMW Racing Team has a much greater distance to travel to get to Round 6 of the 2016 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship in Malaysia as teams and riders prepare to take on the new Sepang track surface for the first time. Only 50 km from the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, the track has 5 left-hand corners and 10 right-handers, but the greatest challenge can often prove the tropical conditions, with high temperatures, considerable levels of humidity and the risk of thunderstorms.

Jordi Torres ended Race 1 in 2015 in the top ten, before climbing on the podium in Race 2. Teammate Markus Reiterberger, despite the extensive experience of the rookie, has never raced in Sepang and is eager to get to know the track.

“I like the Sepang track but we’ll have to see how it is this time because I know they’ve resurfaced the track and modified the corner profiles,” said Torres, a veteran of the circuit. “We hope for the best, but it will be the same for everyone of course. Last year didn’t go too badly, I even reached the podium in race two. We’re competitive on the straights and this will be important on the Malaysian track, but we still have to find good acceleration through the turns, that are long, and work also on traction control. Imola went quite well in the end, and so we want to continue in the same direction to develop the bike as well as possible.”

“I’m really looking forward to Sepang and am excited to ride this weekend, as I’ve never been to Malaysia,” added Reiterberger. “So I only ‘know’ the track from watching GP races and from seeing it on the Playstation game. I think it could be a good one for me anyway, with the long braking areas and long straights. I hope we can start with a good base setting and improve session by session. I also hope we can also solve the problems we had in Imola in terms of braking and vibration, the team has some ideas and so I’m looking forward to getting started!”

The first practice sessions of the Fassi Malaysian Round get underway on Friday 13^th May at 10:15am local time (GMT +8) as WorldSBK returns to Asia to Sepang International Circuit.