World Superbike newcomer BMW Motorrad Italia Team, with James Toseland and Ayrton Badovini got their first ride in a private two day test at Portimao, on their official BMW S1000RR’s which the Italian team only finished building last week. The team used BMW’s test bikes at the previous tests at Portimao earlier this month.

The first day of testing was only a taste, as the usual bad weather once again hampered, at least in the morning session that the riders had to sit out, while in the afternoon session on a drying track, both riders got in about 20 laps, each trying to find a basic set-up.

Today’s session was concentrated on weight distribution and suspension settings and electronic mapping and the team is now headed back to Italy to study the data gathered and will return to Portimao in January, while the official BMW team will be at Eastern Creek, Australia for more testing and hoping for better weather than has been in Europe of late.

Speaking to the official World Superbike website, Toseland said,“The package is very good. The engine has good power and we are working to obtain a more even distribution. The bike ’s strength is I think that the chassis provides excellent response when changing direction. We worked carefully on the set up of the suspension, weight distribution and the bike responds very well to changes. We must, however, work to develop the whole package . The team is fantastic and a lot of the guys are the same as those with which we won the title in 2004. “

“I was impressed by the professionalism of the team, which I already knew,” said Aryton Badovini. “The bike is built well but, of course, is being refined. We have already seen the details of what we will be doing and I am sure at our second outing at the end of January everything will be even better.”

Serafino Foti, team manager of BMW Motorrad Superbike Italy team: “We started working on the bike just a month and a half ago and we put in a lot of effort to be ready to test in Portimao. We are quite satisfied with the way the bike responded but obviously it remains to be seen what else happens as it was on the track for the first time in Portugal. The track, due to yesterday’s (Thursday) rain, was very dirty, but we needed to cover a lot of miles and not take too much notice of the times we set.”

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