BMW progress pleases Corser
Podium results are still to be achieved but for the vastly experienced Corser, the project is still well on schedule.
"We are where I expected we would get to before the summer break," said Corser, who has good reason to be confident for the final few races of the year. "The last few races are to be held at tracks I feel I am pretty strong at and we have got the bike to where I can actually ride it a bit more comfortably than I could at the beginning of the season."
Starting from scratch is not an easy thing to do at any time, but with 2009 being maybe an all-time high in terms of the series' overall strength in depth, BMW's task has been made all the more difficult by all the other, more highly developed, machines. Corser acknowledges this is a very real factor, but is unfazed by the fact that so many bikes have been affecting BMW's ultimate results, in practice and in races.
"Having so many bikes so close in lap times is maybe making it look worse than we are really doing, in terms of positions," said Corser. "But in terms of lap times that we have achieved on a new bike, even when compared to the bike I rode last year, or compared to the bikes that are already more set-up this year, we are not that far. We have definitely done a good job. The steps we are making with the engine for the end of the season are the right way to go, for sure. We have compared them back-to-back a few times and Brno was our confirmation that we are going in the right direction."
A rider of Corser's experience is approaching the next round as calmly as ever, but for BMW it will be the biggest weekend of the year - their home round at the Nürburgring.
"Nürburgring is a big event for the company, but for me it is another race we have to do the job at," said Corser, 33 times a WSB race winner. "But it is a track I did go well at last year and I feel that the bike is as good as the one I raced in Germany last year, so we'll see how it does".
