Winner van der Mark: “Toprak brought fire into the team” / Superbike World Championship

Michael van der Mark last won a race on October 3, 2021, in the sprint in the rain in Portimao. The year before, he won the sprint in Barcelona on September 20. The last time the Dutchman stood on the top podium in a main race was on June 9, 2019 in Jerez, back then with a Yamaha.

The 31-year-old has been riding for the BMW factory team since 2021, and his unparalleled streak of bad luck began in March 2022. A few days before the first test rides, he suffered a displaced fracture of his right tibia and fibula while training on his mountain bike. The next setback followed in Estoril on May 20: After a highsider in FP1, he broke the femoral neck of his right leg.

Two more highsiders influenced the 2023 season: In Mandalika he broke the middle phalanx of the ring and little fingers of his left hand, and in Assen the BMW rider suffered a fracture of his left femur in April. It was not until Most at the end of July that the unlucky rider returned to his M1000RR.

In 2024, van der Mark improved step by step, and before his victory in the rain race on Saturday in France, he had already finished in the top seven eight times.

Michael took his 41st podium finish in the Superbike World Championship, his sixth victory. In 2018 he was third in the World Championship on Yamaha, and in 2014 he was Supersport Champion with Honda.

In Magny-Cours, van der Mark showed a fantastic performance on the wet track. Only Alex Lowes rode at the same level, but he crashed once and had to give up his subsequent attempt to catch up because the fairing on his Kawasaki had come loose.

“When it started to rain, we had zero grip with the slick tires,” van der Mark told a small media round. “I stayed out one lap too long before changing to rain tires. I got on the track ahead of Alex and we had a nice battle. I had my pace without having to push like crazy. Alex overtook me and I tried to stay with him. He put a lot of pressure on me and then unfortunately crashed. In a race you have to find the right balance between speed and not taking too many risks.”

“It feels very strange,” said the Dutchman about his greatest sporting success in over five years. “I wanted to fight for podium places this weekend, I had a strong pace on Friday. But to win is incredible. Even though the conditions were terrible, you have to win first. It feels unreal. It was a shame that I couldn't stand on the podium with Toprak, but this is another victory for the team.”

Razgatlioglu won the 13 races before Magny-Cours, but after his terrible crash on Friday he was banned from starting for the rest of the weekend. Van der Mark secured the 14th BMW triumph in a row!

“The last two years have been very tough with two major injuries,” said the six-time race winner. “I didn't ride much during that time and with the level of the Superbike World Championship today it's difficult to come back.” It was also difficult for me to keep the faith. But fortunately we made progress, especially at the beginning of this year. That's one of the reasons why BMW renewed my contract, which in turn gave me a lot of confidence. That allowed me to stay calm and build up my performance bit by bit. All in all, it shows that you can achieve something if you don't give up. People only see me at the race track, it wasn't easy to sit at home for so long. And that was several times. A big part of it goes to my girlfriend. She never complained and always motivated me. She always did everything for me and never said a bad word or told me to quit – nothing! Without her and my son, I might have been one of them.”

“Toprak has brought a lot of fire to the team this year,” concluded the Magny Cours winner. “It was nice to have him there after that massive crash, he was very lucky.” We work together a lot and I told him before the race that my goal is to steal as many points as possible from his rivals. He later said that I deserved this victory. I replied that if his streak had ended, then I would give another victory to BMW.”

Because the World Championship runner-up Nicolo Bulega crashed, Razgatlioglu still has a 92-point lead despite not taking part. Van der Mark improved to seventh place overall with his 25 points.