I met Michael at this year’s Bike Show @ the Excel and he very kindly answered some questions for me.

Michael is known as “The Blade” and currently races in the National Superstock 1000 Championship aboard a BMW S1000RR. He has a reputation for being at his best in wet conditions and his favourite circuit is Oulton Park. Michael has won 29 British Superbike Championship races with the most recent being at Silverstone in 2010, and finished as series runner-up twice. He has also contested MotoGP and World Superbike Championship.

1. What is the best feeling about being on a motorbike?
The freedom and the speed.

2. What is the one thing people would never know about you just by looking at you?
Oh blimey, I don’t know!

3. What was your most embarrassing moment on a motorbike?
When I was going to take some newcomers out on the Classic TT and I forgot my gloves.

4. What is the worst thing your mum caught you doing as a kid?
Nothing. (Editor’s note: yeah, right!!!!!!!!!!)

5. Do you have a lucky thing/ritual before the start of a race?
No, not really although if it was a number I didn’t like, I wouldn’t have it.

6. What was the first motorbike you owned?
A TS50X Suzuki.

7. What is your favourite stretch of road to ride on (not including a race track)?
The road from Bridgnorth to Stour Bridge, I run all my bikes in on that road.

8. If you hadn’t been a racer, what would you have been?
A mechanic.

9. Would you ride pillion? If so, who with?
No, never.

10. If you got arrested, what would your friends and family assume you had done?
Definitely for speeding!

BK

After the unexpected rain of Saturday, dry conditions on Sunday morning were welcomed by the teams as they looked to find some sort of setup for the remaining two races of the weekend at Magny-Cours, round eleven of the 2019 Superbike World Championship.

The Superpole race on Sunday morning once again saw Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) starting from the pole position he earned on Saturday morning, while race one winner Toprak Razgatlioglu (Turkish Puccetti Racing) had to start once more from his qualifying position of sixteenth.

It was a strong start from Rea but it was Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK) who made the holeshot to take the lead, one he held for the opening lap.

Already by the end of the first lap there was a breakaway group of three, with van der Mark, Rea and Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) breaking away from Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK) in fourth.

On lap two, on the entry to the Imola chicane, Rea took the lead from van der Mark, whilst Razgatlioglu had been making strong progress – fifth from sixteenth by the end of the second lap, and on lap three he passed Sykes for fourth and Haslam for third.

At the front, Rea wasn’t escaping from van der Mark, and Razgatlioglu was closing in third. Additionally, the ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati riders, Alvaro Bautista in eighth and Chaz Davies in fourth, were displaying strong pace.

Onto lap five and Razgatlioglu passed van der Mark for second, setting his sights on Rea as Davies closed in on the leading trio from behind.

By the end of lap six Rea and Razgatlioglu were distinctly a pairing at the front, detached from van der Mark in third whose attentions were being further taken by Davies.

Lap seven saw Rea lose the lead to Razgatlioglu, and he held it to the beginning of the final lap. Rea passed for the lead into the hairpin in turn five, but ran wide and Razgatlioglu was able to square him off. Rea was not close enough to make another attempt, meaning Razgatlioglu once again came from sixteenth to win – perhaps more impressively on this occasion considering he had only ten laps to do the job.

Second place for Rea saw a further extension of his championship advantage, which now stands at 103 points ahead of the final race of the weekend in which he will have an outside chance of wrapping up his fifth World Championship.

It was third place for Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK), a positive result for the Dutchman after the disappointment of race one. Of course, the results of the Superpole race determine the front three rows of the second full length race of the weekend, meaning all of the top three will start from the front row.

Chaz Davies was ultimately unable to get close enough to attack van der Mark for the podium and finished fourth ahead of teammate Alvaro Bautista who took fifth ahead of Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK), both Bautista and Lowes repeating their results of Saturday’s race.

Seventh place went to Loris Baz (Ten Kate Racing – Yamaha), who was able to take advantage of Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK) and his struggles towards the end of the race to finish seventh while Sykes took eighth. Ninth place went to Leon Haslam who dropped off significantly after the opening laps where he was in the leading group – in the end the #91 was over ten seconds off the win. The top ten was rounded out by Michael Ruben Rinaldi (BARNI Racing) who was clearly much more comfortable in the fully dry conditions than in the half-half of Saturday.

Sandro Cortese took eleventh place ahead of GRT Yamaha WorldSBK teammate Marco Melandri in twelfth and Eugene Laverty (Team Goeleven) in thirteenth; while Leandro Mercado (Orelac Racing VerdNatura) was fourteenth and Jordi Torres (Team Pedercini Racing) took the final point in fifteenth.

Leon Camier (Moriwaki Althea Honda Team) was sixteenth, unable to repeat his impressive result of Saturday, ahead of Markus Reiterberger (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK) in seventeenth, Sylvain Barrier (Brixx Performance) in eighteenth, Alessandro Delbianco (Althea Mie Racing Team) in nineteenth and Ryuichi Kiyonari (Moriwaki Althea Honda Team) who was the final classified rider in twentieth, the Japanese remounting after a crash.

The eight-hundredth race in the history of the Superbike World Championship took place in Magny-Cours at the eleventh round of the 2019 season, as Toprak Razgatlioglu (Turkish Puccetti Racing) took his maiden victory in the Superbike class.

The Turkish rider started well, recovering from a poor starting position of sixteenth – obtained in Saturday morning’s wet Superpole session – to end the first lap in seventh place.

Chaz Davies (ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati) was another rider who made a strong start to the race, coming from eleventh on the grid to lead on lap three before a mistake dropped him back to fourth. It was in trying to recover from this mistake that Davies crashed, nearly taking out Razgatlioglu in the process. It was a strange incident, at the penultimate corner, where Davies never seemed interested in making a move but rather seemed forced into diving to the inside to try to avoid the Turk. A similar incident later in the race for Davies’ factory Ducati teammate, Alvaro Bautista (ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati), pointed towards perhaps a characteristic of the bike pushing its riders into these errors. Either way, it wa s abig shame for Davies who looked capable of fighting for the podium and perhaps the win.

The incident between Davies and Toprak split the pack a bit. Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorlsSBK) was out front from Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) and Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK) while Razgatlioglu was fourth.

On lap five Sykes began to suffer more with the handling of the BMW, coming under pressure from Rea who in turn was under pressure from van der Mark.

Of the three, it was van der Mark who seemed the most comfortable with the setting of his bike, while in comparison Sykes seemed to be suffering in the braking and Rea had some problem with the front of his bike, running on several times into turn eleven.

As the two in front began to struggle more with the pace, van der Mark began to take advantage, taking second from Rea on lap six and one lap later relieving Sykes of the lead.

One lap after Sykes had lost the lead he was down to fifth, as Rea, Razgatlioglu and Loris Baz (Ten Kate – Yamaha) all passed the #66 on lap seven.

Over the next laps, the two Kawasaki riders, Rea and Razgatlioglu, started to pull away from Baz – who eventually dropped back in the end and fought with Sykes. The stablemates, however, were unable to make much impression on van der Mark who was consistent out front, making few mistakes aboard his Yamaha.

Once Rea found his rhythm, however, the gap started to come down to the leader. The pressure was growing on van der Mark, and finally Rea forced the error in the Adelaide Hairpin. Van der Mark lost the front on the entry having found himself in slightly too deep, and when it folded there was no way for him to save it. Rea inherited the lead as a result, and found himself with an advantage of over one second with just over two laps to go.

It seemed a tall ask for Razgatlioglu to reel in Rea in the time he had left, even going onto the final lap the gap was close to one second. But the #54 was able to make a strong first half of the last lap , and going into turn eleven, where Rea had been having so many problems throughout the race, Razgatlioglu was able to dive on the inside of the World Championship leader and squeeze through. It was a tough move, but fair, one which Rea would have been delighted with had the roles been reversed. Not only did Razgatlioglu manage to get passed, but he also got a strong enough exit to ensure that Rea had no way to respond in the remaining four corners.

It was a well-deserved and arguably overdue victory for Razgatlioglu, who has looked likely all season to take a win. The emotions were mixed in parc ferme, as team owner Manuel Puccetti both celebrated his first triumph in the premier class of production derived motorcycle racing, but also pondered the future in the knowledge that the rider who brought him this victory would be leaving next season.

Second place for Jonathan Rea could quite easily have been much less, his lack of comfort with the bike making things complicated for the reigning World Champion. On top of that, the race was hectic, and especially in the beginning there were many overtakes, and a lot of them were on the limit. It was a fantastic race, one fitting of the eight-hundredth in the history of the series, but no doubt one which Rea will be as glad to survive as he was to step once more on the podium. The Northern Irishman’s points lead now stands at precisely one-hundred points, meaning the title possibilities remain open for tomorrow should results go his way.

Tom Sykes was able to rebound in the second half of the race after fading in the back end of the opening ten laps. Loris Baz began to drop off once he lost the carrot of the two Kawasakis ahead of him. That dropped the Frenchman back to his ex-teammate who was able to take advantage and claim his first podium in a full-distance race since the second race in Donington.

It was a shame that Sykes’ success had to come at the cost of a podium for Loris Baz in his home race. The Frenchman had a strong opportunity to be on the podium in his home race, and although he missed it the fact he was there proves the progress the Ten Kate team are making with the R1.

Rounding out the top five was Alvaro Bautista on the Spaniard’s first trip to Magny-Cours. It was a tough race for Bautista, who spent much of the twenty-one laps alone and was close to crashing in an almost identical incident to his teammate, Davies, when trying to pass Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK). The world title slipped further still from the #19’s hands in this race, but his souring relationship with Ducati management means that his focus is likely already heavily towards 2020 when he goes to HRC.

Lowes ended up sixth, almost six seconds back of Bautista. Behind the Yamaha rider was Leon Camier (Moriwaki Althea Honda Team) who had a good ride on his return to racing having been out since Imola in May, the #2 coming home in seventh, a couple of seconds ahead of Marco Melandri (GRT Yamaha) WorldSBK). Eugene Laverty (Team GoEleven) was ninth, ahead of Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha WorldSBK) who completed the top ten.

Jordi Torres (Team Pedercini Racing) was eleventh ahead of Leandro Mercado (Orelac Racing VerdNatura) in twelfth and Michael van der Mark who remounted after his crash to finish thirteenth. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (BARNI Racing) was fourteenth after starting from the second row, whilst Alessandro Delbianco (Althea Mie Racing Team) took the final point in fifteenth.

It was a difficult race for Markus Reiterberger (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK) who, whilst his teammate was finishing on the podium, came home in sixteenth ahead of Sylvain Barrier (Brixx Performance) and Ryuichi Kiyonari (Moriwaki Althea Honda Team) who was the final classified finisher in eighteenth.

There were only two retirements, the first being Chaz Davies, and the second being Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) who had a nasty high side on the exit of the final chicane but appeared to be mostly unhurt.

A dramatic Superpole Race in Laguna Seca for round nine of the 2019 Superbike World Championship saw Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) secure his second win of the weekend, his ninth of the season.

Chaz Davies (ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati) challenged Rea into turn two on the first lap, but the drama was further behind, as Alvaro Bautista (ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati) made contact with Toprak Razgatlioglu (Turkish Puccetti Racing) and crashed.

There was possible good fortune for the Spaniard, though, as a heavy crash for JD Beach (Attack Performance Estenson Yamaha) and Alessandro Delbianco (Althea Mie Racing Team) brought out the red flags. Both Beach and Delbianco were okay, but Bautista was taken to the medical centre after he brought back the #19 Ducati, and then failed to make the restart.

At the resumption of the race, Rea took the holeshot and immediately cleared off, despite being the only rider not on the SCX tyre, designed especially for the ten-lap sprint races. The reigning World Champion was once again untouchable, and collected another thirteen points, extending his points lead to sixty-one – almost a full weekend’s worth of points and a complete flip of the gap between Rea and Bautista ahead of race two in Jerez. It was Rea’s eightieth World Superbike victory, and the 250th for a British rider in the series.

Chaz Davies was similarly unchallenged to take another second place, his third of the season. Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK) took the final podium spot for his third top three of the season.

Toprak Razgatlioglu was closing on Sykes in the closing laps of the race, but ran out of time, finishing fourth in the end ahead of Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) who rounded out the top five. Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK) took sixth place ahead of Loris Baz (Ten Kate Racing – Yamaha), Jordi Torres (Team Pedercini Racing), Leandro Mercado (Orelac Racing VerdNatura) who took the final point in ninth and Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK) who completed the top ten.

Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha WorldSBK) was eleventh ahead of Markus Reiterberger (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK), Michael Ruben Rinaldi (BARNI Racing Team), Eugene Laverty (Team Goeleven), Ryuichi Kiyonari (Moriwaki Althea Honda Team) and Marco Melandri (GRT Yamaha WorldSBK) who was the final classified rider in sixteenth after running on at turn two.

The only non-finishers were the non-starters of Delbianco, Beach and Bautista.