The WSBK season has barely started and already nothing is going well at BMW. During the off-season, factory team rider Scott Redding was relentless with his employer when he found out what his new M1000RR was made of. To extend the metaphor, the Englishman clearly explained that things were going wrong for the Bavarian brand's project with a policy identified as unsuitable for the issue. The challenge had been tough, but last weekend's competition revealed that it was legitimate. The four BMWs are not up to par, which includes the machines of the satellite team Bonovo whose boss, although reputed to be calm and pragmatic, is in limbo after the pitiful spectacle imposed on him in Australia. The crisis is in order.
At BMW, the 2023 World Superbike season is likely to be long, and this is not good news for Scott Redding, Michaël Van der Mark, Garret Gerloff and our Loris Baz. For the last two cities, teammates within the Bonovo satellite team, the results were as follows: 10th, 15th and 14th places for the newly recruited American and 18th, 13th and 15th for the Frenchman.
A miserable record which made the boss come off his hinges Jürgen Roder who, before pointing out where the responsibilities lie, dismisses those who have nothing to do with it: “ we cannot be satisfied with these results. Given what we're investing, it's simply not enough. We know that the results cannot be attributed to our drivers because we know that they can all finish on the podium. The four BMW drivers gave their all ". And he adds: “ of course, the level of competition is higher than ever this year, making the shortcomings, some of which are still present in the bike, all the more apparent ».
« At BMW they should work on development in coordination with drivers and teams«
From there he says what he has to say about BMW... " BMW makes incredible efforts, we always have new parts, we always have things that are tested, which are then also racing, but maybe we should sit down together and think about how to proceed ". On speedweek, it develops : " so I would like us to sit down together, talk and think what we can do and how we can do it and that we also carry out more tests to develop ».
He even makes an observation identical to what we hear in MotoGP on the working method of Yamaha and Honda, or Japanese in general: “ I think that at BMW they should work on development in coordination with the drivers and teams ". A barrier that Ducati et Aprilia knew how to blow up in Grand Prix. This shows that not all Europeans are in the same boat when it comes to revealing a synergy to be put in place, avoiding the toxicity of headquarters inertia.
The boss of the Bonovo team concludes: “ what I feared happened this weekend. As I said before, I thought Australia and probably also Indonesia would be more of a test than anything else. But we've already seen that we can't keep up with people in the top 5 or even the top 10 under normal circumstances ". Will we soon hear as a reaction coming from Munich a “we are BMW” as we repeat endlessly from Tokyo “we are Honda”? In any case, things are already bad at BMW worldwide Superbike.
