While the majority of BMW’s headlines this year have been written by Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team), teammate Michael van der Mark was creating his own at the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours as the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship descended on the French venue. The Dutchman topped Free Practice 2 and the combined classification at a circuit he’s enjoyed success at before as he laid down a marker for his rivals on the opening day of the Motul French Round.

While Razgatlioglu was the fastest rider in FP1, a crash on his first flying lap in FP2 meant he didn’t set a time. Van der Mark was running well across the whole day but improved his time by around a second in the afternoon session to post a 1’36.010s to claim P1 in Friday’s classification. He was 0.149s ahead of Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) in second while Razgatlioglu claimed third with his FP1 time of a 1’36.347s.

Van der Mark has had plenty of podiums at Magny-Cours, claiming six podiums between 2016 and 2020 across Honda and Yamaha machines, although he’s yet to reach those heights in France with BMW. He was also on the rostrum in 2014 in WorldSSP in his title-winning campaign. Despite not standing on the podium at Magny-Cours with BMW, it’s a circuit the M 1000 RR has gone well at with Scott Redding (Bonovo Action BMW) on the rostrum in 2022 and Garrett Gerloff (Bonovo Action BMW) on pole last year.

Reviewing his Friday, van der Mark said: “It’s a track I love. I enjoy coming here and today I enjoyed it even more because, from the first lap this morning, the bike was feeling good. We didn’t change a lot today because the bike felt good and I was just trying to be precise, have a good pace. It’s nice to be fast, but also to finish the day fastest is very nice. This morning, we made a good start and had good pace. In WorldSBK, the margins are very small so when you analyse things, you see small differences, but you can see BMWs are on the pace.”

Van der Mark is yet to stand on the podium in 2024 despite fighting close to the top three, particularly in the recent visit to Portimao. He secured fourth in the Tissot Superpole Race and was in the top seven, while he was also fifth in Race 2 at the Autodrom Most. He’s also been fourth in Barcelona Race 2 and, more often than not, has been a top ten runner throughout the season.

Discussing his hopes for the French Round, van der Mark stated: “Of course, every weekend I hope to be on the podium and Portimao was pretty close. We’ve started the weekend very well, the bike is feeling fantastic and I’m feeling very good, so we’ll just see what the weather will do and what conditions will be during the weekend. I think my confidence is growing and hopefully I can be on the podium.”

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