First Person/Opinion:

By Michael Gougis

BMW’s 2024 Superbike World Championship season was an exercise in domination. World Champion Toprak Razgatlioglu won 13 races in a row, 18 in total and won the title by 43 points even after missing six races due to injury.

But in 2025, the team apparently will have to make do without the special chassis that it developed for the M 1000 RR that it raced in 2024.

World Superbike’s “superconcessions” rules allow for substantial changes for teams that are not doing well. In 2023, BMW did not win a single World Superbike race, with Alvaro Bautista dominating on the Ducati Panigale V4 R. Under the rules, BMW was allowed to race with a “superconcessions” chassis in 2024, which Razgatlioglu took to his second world title.

Right now, BMW is preparing to race in 2025 with the standard chassis from its new 2025 M 1000 RR, said Shaun Muir, ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team Principal.

“We started a plan for this as late as September last year, we knew this was going to disappear,” said Muir at the team’s 2025 team launch. “The chassis was our only concession, and we had already been testing the bike in its full, complete 2025 package in December in Jerez, so I’d say we’re confident.”

However, BMW’s Superbike Technical Director Chris Gonschor said it has not yet been completely settled whether the team can race with the 2024 chassis.

“Based on the regulations, we can carry on (with) our concession parts. There are some discussions about fine-tuning the regulations. In case the regulations will change, our bike will be according to the regulations. Let’s see and wait for the final outcome of the regulations,” Gonschor said.

A final decision on the 2025 homologation for the M 1000 RR configuration is due in two weeks, he said.

With data acquisition an increasingly critical part of road racing success, Gonschor says he is not concerned that BMW will be handicapped by the loss of the Bonovo Action team, which ran American Garrett Gerloff and Scott Redding on satellite M 1000 RR racebikes in 2024. BMW will have only the two factory bikes on the grid, while chief rival Ducati will have eight. But Gonschor said the team would rely on the feedback from the test team and the racing by other BMW riders. Former Superbike World Champion Sylvain Guintoli and former European Superstock 1000 Champion Markus Reiterberger will race an M 1000 RR in the FIM Endurance World Championship series as well as perform testing duties for the World Superbike team.

“I can focus on my bikes and our riders. We have two strong racebikes on the grid and we have the test team in the background. So we can do the work we need to do. Anyway, only one rider can win the race. Only one rider can win the Championship,” Gonschor said.