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A third consecutive triple by Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) now sees the 2021 World Champion with a round in hand over his nearest rivals in the 2024 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship. Ten wins in a row have set him as the benchmark in WorldSBK right now, as well as BMW, who lead the Manufacturers’ Championship for the first time in 12 years. We caught up with the manufacturer’s technical director, Chris Gonschor, about the latest achievement as well as looking to Portimao.

Starting with the biggest picture, Gonschor stated of his enjoyment in seeing BMW succeed: “These are definitely good times! Ten wins in a row is a big success so thanks to everyone involved in Munich and all our engineers and suppliers. Seeing Michael fighting for the podium in Race 2 and finishing in a very good position like Scott managed at Donington Park proves that the potential of the bike is there. It’s generally one rider making a difference which is obvious but at the end, all the others are closing up. We’re learning as an engineering group too, about how to improve the bike; we’re getting closer to where we want to be which means having more BMWs on the front rows and podiums. This is the biggest target for the upcoming round.”

When asked if he would’ve believed the success if someone would have told it would happen 12 months ago, he could barely believe it: “It sounds like a dream! It couldn’t have been expected! It was clear from the winter that we could fight for the win but fighting for the win and winning are different things; winning ten in a row… nobody would’ve said that was clearly going to happen. It was clear that we went in the right direction but our competitors will fight back – Nicolo is doing an amazing job in his rookie season and it’s really impressive what he gets out of the bike already. It will be tough at the end of the year.”

Another one of those “special” weekends for BMW, this time with the added bonus of sharing the moment with family: “It was definitely special but every weekend is special; Misano was special, Barcelona too, here was special for the fact that so many BMW employees and friends from the whole crew were here. It’s the closest circuit we visit to the Munich headquarters, so it was kind of a home round. I hope they all enjoyed and also the fans too; it’s good to see more and more BMW flags flying. Finally, for me, having the family attend once in the year did make it even a little bit better.”

Two more wins and Toprak sets a new record for consecutive WorldSBK victories, something Gonschor hasn’t looked at: “We’re not clearly looking at records, we’re just looking at the next races. We are in a good reference where we can start. Last year, Garrett Gerloff rode very well and we hope to repeat it. It would be nice to see Scott, Mikey, Garrett and Toprak fighting for the podium. In which combination, I don’t care! As long as it’s a BMW! I’m always happy when a BMW wins!”

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