BMW Motorrad Motorsport gave a strong performance in Saturday’s race at Assen (NED) to confirm the upward trend in the FIM Superbike World Championship, but a serious accident for Jonas Folger (GER) overshadowed the good results. Running in seventh place, the rider from the BMW satellite team Bonovo MGM Racing crashed out just before the finish. After initial examinations in the Medical Centre, Folger was transferred to hospital for further checks as a precautionary measure, which he was able to leave again in the meantime. Michael van der Mark (NED) from the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team was fourth in the first race on his home circuit. His team-mate Tom Sykes (GBR), who started from 20th on the grid, was classified seventh.
Folger had been the fastest BMW rider after a strong performance in the morning’s Superpole. He claimed sixth spot, on the second row of the grid. Van der Mark finished Superpole in ninth place. Sykes endured some back luck, as a technical issue prevented him from taking to the track until the end of the session. He chalked up the second-fastest time but the lap was not classified as it had begun just a few fractions of a second too late. As Sykes’ time did not count, he had to start from 20th on the grid.
All three BMW riders gave impressively strong performances in the race itself. At the start, Folger defended his sixth place, van der Mark fell back for a brief period and Sykes moved up five positions straight away. However, van der Mark sprinted quickly up through the field, reaching fifth place on lap three. One lap later, he was in fourth and intent on closing the gap to the leading trio. Folger held on to sixth spot before dropping down one place on lap 16. Meanwhile, Sykes continued to work his way up through the field from the back, reaching eighth position. Folger, however, crashed out two laps before the end, leading to an immediate red flag.
