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The two-day MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship at the Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli” is a chance for teams and riders to test new items ahead of Round 5 at the same circuit at the start of June. However, for Tom Sykes, it is a chance to get reunited with the BMW M1000RR machine as well as the ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team outfit after he re-joined the squad on a temporary basis this week and Team Principal Shaun Muir discussed Sykes’ return to the team during the Misano test.

SYKES IS BACK: Muir’s thoughts on Sykes’ return to BMW

Sykes left Kawasaki Puccetti Racing and subsequently re-joined BMW, the team and manufacturer he left at the end of the 2021 campaign, to temporarily replace Dutch rider Michael van der Mark who continues to recover from a fractured left femur sustained in a crash at Assen. Sykes had been competing with Puccetti Kawasaki this season but one point from 12 races and a series of retirements meant that partnership ended early. Until van der Mark is back fit and ready to race, Sykes will replace him during rounds and any tests the BMW team have.

When asked about Sykes’ return, Muir said: “For us, it was an easy decision to make. Already, before this, to replace anyone in WorldSBK at this level is very difficult. Ivo Lopes did a really good job in Catalunya but it’s quite clear that there’s another two or three rounds where Michael will not be ready to come back. For us, good to have Tom back and have him as a reference point. It’s a good opportunity for Tom in two aspects. The first is for Tom to put himself back on the stage. We cannot make any commitment long-term to Tom. It’s a big chance for him to prove what level he’s still at and, already I can see from only one hour on track, the old Tom is there. We know he’s quick, we know he has pace. That ticks one box.

“The second aspect is understanding Tom’s character and what he can bring to the team. He’s got an enormous amount of experience and he’s ridden several manufacturers’ bikes. For me, we’re going to take as much as we can from him in the time that we have him. We don’t want to start throwing new material at him. We want to say ‘this is the bike you finished on in 2021, and this is the bike now in 2023, please assess where we are, give us your experienced feedback and do you feel we’ve made the right direction or does it still have the same problems it still had in 2021?’.

MISANO TEST: what will Sykes and Redding be working on?

Sykes will be alongside Scott Redding during this test and at the rounds he competes in for BMW and the pair will be looking to help BMW make steps forward with the German manufacturer currently last in the Manufacturers’ Championship. Muir explained that both riders have a different testing programme for the Misano test but with the goal of being able to improve the M1000RR as soon as possible.

Talking about the testing programme for both Sykes and Redding, Muir said: “Tom’s testing programme is very limited because his focus is to reacclimatise himself to the M1000RR which has developed a lot over the time he was last on the bike. The main focus for him is to, ergonomically, get back to feeling the bike and also some chassis changes within the base setup that we have. We’re not developing parts for Tom at all, he’s only going to have the base bike and also around the base electronics which have also changed since he last rode it.

“On Scott’s side, we have a pretty extensive programme. It’s mainly focused on chassis and swingarm evolution. We’re working on two variations of swingarms and two variations of the chassis. The swingarms are existing swingarms with modifications to them so we can find the development direction. Whatever we finalise here will not be immediately available, it’s something we’ll need to work towards. It’s been well understood within the BMW family, all four riders, that our mid-corner turning is the big issue for us, and we need to make steps to overcome this. The problem with the bike for us, which is stopping us making a big step forward, is the turning characteristics of the bike. This is the focus of our test.”

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