Garrett Gerloff “couldn’t enjoy” 2024 WorldSBK highlight

Garrett Gerloff lost his ride in 2024, but progressed throughout the year until he was contending for podiums by the end.

The American wound up ninth in the championship and as the third-placed BMW rider, behind the 2024 champion Toprak Razgatlioglu, and Michael van der Mark who finished the year fifth in the standings.

Gerloff’s season started disappointingly, with only three top-10s from the opening 15 races, but by round six in Portimao he was able to contend for podium positions, finishing fourth in Race 1.

It  took until the French Round at Magny-Cours for Gerloff to finally stand on the rostrum in 2024 – his first top-three finish since he was third in Race 1 at Barcelona in 2022 – on this occasion overcoming the disappointment of crashing out of the lead in a wet Magny-Cours Race 1 the day before.

“When I first moved to BMW, I knew the bike was good, but we were struggling at the beginning, and at the end of 2023 we got pretty close to a podium a couple of times,” Gerloff told WorldSBK.com.

“I thought for sure we were going to have a podium in 2023 and then that never materialised – that was something super-disappointing.

“At the beginning of this year, we had an even worse start to the year than we had the year before.

“[So] to finally get to a place where I’m riding like I know I can and the bike is working like I know it should, to finally just have it all come together and to get that podium at Magny-Cours – which is where I had a good weekend the year before, and I’ve had good memories there in the past – it was so nice.”

Gerloff confessed that he “couldn’t enjoy” the podium in France because of the expectations he has of himself.

“[It was] just a big relief,” he said. “I almost couldn’t enjoy it because it felt like where I needed to be all along, and so it was just a relief to finally get there again.

“It was so nice for the team, to see them smiling and happy, they had never had a podium [in WorldSBK] before.

“I think it was almost maybe more monumental for them than it was for me, it just felt like I was getting back to where I knew I could be.”

The time taken to get to the podium in 2024, after ending 2023 strongly, had frustrated Gerloff at the beginning of the season.

“I was disappointed at the beginning of the year,” he said.

“We ended the year last year so strong and I didn’t expect anything less, I expected this year to start as good as [last year] had finished.

“But we just had some issues that we couldn’t solve for some reason.

“Once we did that, everything clicked into place super-quick and easy, almost. [It was like that] since maybe a little bit before Magny, but Magny-Cours was where it really showed itself.”