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BMW lost nearly 30 seconds: Team principal Shaun Muir assesses the Donington fiasco

No top-10 finish: For the BMW works team, with Miguel Oliveira and Danilo Petrucci, the Superbike World Championship at Donington Park turned into a real ordeal following six consecutive victories for Toprak.

Superbike WC

12.07.2026 - 22:07

This article is an automatically generated English version. The original article was published in German.

Weit hinten im Feld: Danilo Petrucci (9) gegen Stefano Manzi
© gold & goose

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Before the start of the season, critical voices dominated, but the World Championship rounds so far have shown that the rule changes are delivering exactly what was hoped for: excitement right up to the final lap.

In 2024 and 2025, BMW swept to victory in all six races at the picturesque Donington Park circuit with Toprak Razgatlioglu. This year, the 50,000 fans who turned out over the three days were presented with a completely different picture: Ducati, as it had done all season, was in a league of its own and bagged all nine podium places.

Oliveira finished 11th, 20th and 12th, whilst Petrucci came 15th, 19th and 15th. Oliveira, the better of the BMW duo, lost nearly 30 seconds to the winner in both long races. “We were further behind than we’d hoped,” said the Portuguese rider. “That gives us work to do over the summer break. We’re definitely determined to improve for the rest of the season. The team is just as dissatisfied with the results as I am. The good thing is that we’re all pulling in the same direction to further develop this package. I’m confident that, with everyone’s support and our motivation to improve, we’ll achieve better results again.”

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Shaun Muir is delighted to have his riders back

ROKiT team principal Shaun Muir went into more detail. “First of all, I’m really pleased to have both riders back in the pits,” said the Englishman. Oliveira and Petrucci had been out with injuries for weeks, and the results at the Balaton Park Circuit, in Most, Aragon and Misano were correspondingly poor. “On the development front, we’ve clearly missed our two regular riders. At the same time, we’d like to thank Michael van der Mark for his efforts whilst they were away.”

We need to restore Miguel and Danilo’s confidence in the overall package.
BMW team principal Shaun Muir

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“Overall, the weekend was quite difficult for us,” said Muir of the fiasco in England. “We tested here two weeks ago and felt we had a good base, but realised as early as the first and second free practice sessions that we were lacking something in certain areas. Both riders had a decent qualifying session, yet all three races were tough for us. The starts were decent, but afterwards both got caught up in the melee, where they were barely able to make up any ground from the very first laps. Overall, we now need to focus on analysing the data and the upcoming test at Magny-Cours. We need to restore Miguel and Danilo’s confidence in the overall package so that we can pick up where we left off before the injuries.”

The Superbike World Championship is now on its summer break until the first weekend in September in France; alongside the test at Magny-Cours, another is planned at Estoril – both circuits on which Oliveira has never raced at World Championship level.

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