THREE WEEKS ago, Visordown broke the news to the world that BMW was considering Troy Corser as its second rider in the WSB championship next year – and now the company’s Executive Vice President has admitted for the first time that the firm has been in talks with the Australian.
Peter Mueller said: "We are speaking with many other riders not just Troy Corser because at the end we do not know who will sign. But I think it will be an experienced rider because we are new in this game and other teams have great experience, so having a proven Superbike rider would be useful for us. We are talking to some other riders, but in September we want to have everything in place.
"Many people thought it was a case of when we would participate in MotoGP, but we are a business unit on our own in BMW Motorrad, we have to finance our own cash flow and MotoGP is more expensive than Superbike. The board of BMW said we could do everything as long as we could finance it ourselves. We have been involved in one-make series and now we are in off-road and other competition. So for us it was important to get into competition again, and then the next step was Superbike. And not just World Superbike, we want to go to new markets, and the US market is a very big market. If we want to grow we have to go into other segments. If we are in the Superbike sector it also means that we have to race a Superbike in the Superbike class, to show our bike is competitive. I think if we had decided to enter MotoGP in the past, but then we built a road going Superbike, we would also have to enter in the Superbike class to show it was competitive here. If you are new you have to show that."
"Our Motorsports department has to go racing again. We have some teams who are already interested in doing Superstock next year, but we have to make sure we don't do too much next year. But Superstock and then helping private teams in the future is definitely possible. The more teams we have in Superbike and Superstock the more it helps us."
But it seems that the rumours from Germany that Michael Schumacher might take a one-off guest ride on a BMW in the German Superbike series this year were just that, rumours. Although the BMW firm did confirm that they would be competing in their domestic series in 2009.
Mueller added: "We will not be riding in the German Superbike series this year, we will start in the first race next year. We are testing at racetracks in this series to see where we are. When the World Championship is over and Ruben is available we will also go to the tyre tests to find out the level we are at. Our project is running on schedule but as you know in Motorsport, we still have eight or nine months ahead of us, so there is a lot to do."
