MRW Issue 27

NEWS DESK
2022 IN REVIEW:
BMW World Superbike
Change was in the air at the BMW Motorrad
WorldSBK Team in 2022 as Scott Redding
joined the team for the MOTUL FIM Superbike
world Championship as the German
manufacturer looked to build on their racewinning
2021 campaign. Three podiums fell the
way of BMW but they were locked into a battle
with Honda for fourth in the Manufacturers’
Championship standings, eventually coming
out on top after a last-round showdown. Team
Principal of the BMW factory team, Shaun
Muir, looks back on a rollercoaster season for
the German manufacturer and outlines his
ambitions for next season.
only Eugene. From the whole group, both
Bonovo and the factory team, we were all
struggling really to find our level. As soon
as Michael got back, effectively Estoril, he
was injured again. It took Scott maybe four
rounds to get any real feeling. He had an
okay Assen and then moving forward from
Assen it started to come to him a little bit.
He definitely needs more time on the bike
and more testing, but we became a little bit
caught up in trying to get Scott comfortable
instead of developing the bike, and I
think that was one of the areas where we
would’ve done things slightly differently.”
The season started at MotorLand Aragon
in April with Redding scoring only a single
point over three races at the Spanish
BMW’s campaign was disrupted by two
separate injuries to Michael van der Mark, first
in pre-season testing where he missed all the
action and then on his return at the Estoril
Round which forced him to sit out until after
the summer break. It meant the BMW factory
team had no reference for Scott Redding on
the M 1000 RR as Illia Mykhalchyk replaced the
Dutchman. Despite showing impressive pace, it
was Mykhalchyk’s first outing on the WorldSBKspec
BMW machine as he made his debut in
the Championship.
Evaluating how BMW’s season started and how
van der Mark’s injuries impacted the team, Muir
said: “When we look at where we started with
Scott, we had a really, really tough time in preseason
testing. Scott found it really difficult.
Went to Aragon and he was really lost. Didn’t
have Michael. Mykhalchyk stood in for Mickey
so we completely lost our reference point and,
obviously, Loris was new to the Bonovo team,
so we didn’t have a reference on that side;