Austin. Before he rides for the Bonovo action BMW Racing Team
in the FIM Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) at Assen (NED)
this weekend, BMW Motorrad works rider Garrett Gerloff (USA) spent a
few exciting days in his home of Texas. Gerloff was in Austin (USA)
to visit the Grand Prix of the Americas in
MotoGP™ – and took the opportunity to take the new BMW M 1000
RR MotoGP™ Safety Bike onto the track for a spin. The new safety
bike, provided by BMW Motorrad Motorsport and BMW M, was officially
presented during the Grand Prix weekend in Austin.
2023 is BMW M’s 25th season as Official Car of MotoGP™. As part of
the partnership with MotoGP™ rights holder Dorna Sports, BMW M has
provided the official safety car fleet since 1999. For many years, a
BMW Safety Bike has been a permanent fixture in this fleet – first the
HP4, then the BMW S 1000 RR and, since 2021, the BMW M 1000 RR. This
season, the new BMW M 1000 RR takes on important roles as a safety vehicle.
During a MotoGP™ weekend, the safety bike takes on various tasks that
are important to ensure that practices, qualifying sessions and races
run smoothly. “A few minutes before the start of the races, for
example the MotoGP sprint race on the Saturday or the regular race on
the Sunday, the safety bike completes so-called inspection laps,”
explained Axel Mittler, Marketing Manager MotoGP™ at BMW M GmbH. “The
purpose of this is to check, shortly before the race start, that the
track is in good condition, or whether there may be dirt, oil or
something similar on the track.”
From Thursday to Sunday, the safety bike also takes to the track for
the technical test laps several times a day, in order to check the
onboard and data acquisition systems. “Our safety bikes – we have one
on site at overseas races and two in Europe – are equipped with the
same sensor technology as the race bikes in MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3,”
said Mittler. “During the technical test laps, the safety bike is used
to check that the timing is still correct in the sectors, and that all
other data is recorded correctly.”
Television viewers regularly take their place on the seat of the BMW
M MotoGP™ Safety Bikes: on the Friday, TV stations use the bikes to
record onboard footage during the ‘Media Laps’. This is then shown
during programmes on Grand Prix weekends.
During the presentation in Austin, Gerloff took the new safety bike
for a few laps of the Circuit of The Americas (COTA) – and he was
impressed. “The bike was incredibly impressive,” he said. “I was also
very impressed by the power on the back straight and the brakes when
you come from the straight at 320 km/h and are then straight into the
super tight first-gear corner. It does not feel much different to
being on the race bike, and that is excellent. Plus, it looks
fantastic. It was fun taking it out for a spin. MotoGP can consider
itself lucky to have such a high quality safety bike in the BMW M fleet.”
The new BMW M 1000 RR MotoGP™ Safety Bike is therefore ideally
equipped for its outings on the racetrack.
A video clip of Gerloff’s laps on the new BMW M 1000 RR MotoGP™
Safety Bike can be seen here on the MotoGP™ YouTube channel:
http://b.mw/Gerloff_COTA_MotoGP
Gerloff now switches back to the seat of his WorldSBK race version of
the BMW M 1000 RR with the Bonovo action BMW Racing Team. Meanwhile,
the new BMW M 1000 RR MotoGP™ Safety Bike travels from Austin to Jerez
de la Frontera (ESP), where it will next be in MotoGP™ action on the
last weekend in April.
