Things heated up between the BMW riders on the second day of testing for the Superbike World Championship, which took place this week in Jerez. In the final phase of the session, Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW) went out on the track, followed by his teammate Michael van der Mark and Scott Redding (Bonovo Action BMW), who were looking to use him as a reference. However, the British rider attempted to overtake van der Mark twice, even making contact with the Dutch rider.
Van der Mark criticized his fellow BMW rider in statements to the championship’s official website, considering it a lack of respect: ‘Did he do anything wrong? Well, honestly, I went out and followed Toprak. We all went out with a SCQ tire and I wanted to take advantage of Toprak’s slipstream and I was almost at his rear. Scott decided to overtake me in the middle of the lap. I didn’t leave any space between me and Toprak. He wanted to be between the two of us. I overtook him again. In the last corner, he decided to dive inside again, hit me, caused a mess in turn one, and then ruined my first sector. There’s no rule for this, it’s simply a lack of respect. I have no words for this’.
The #60 added: ‘It’s a test, not a race weekend. For himself, he wanted to prove something, put it all on Instagram again to show who’s the best and have a good night’s sleep. I tried to be better than him on the outside braking before he hit me. I wanted to go back to the front’.
