Michael van der Mark: Portimao WorldSBK Race 2 P5 “not bad” after Race 1 “struggle”

Round two of the 2025 WorldSBK season saw a contrast to the opener for Michael van der Mark and BMW, as the Dutch rider took three top-10 finishes.

In Australia, van der Mark had only collected two points after crashing out in Race 1, missing the points in the Superpole Race, and struggling to 14th in Race 2.

The Portuguese Round, though, was much better, with a sixth in Race 1, despite having “struggled”, followed up by a seventh in the Superpole Race and fifth in Race 2.

The results allowed van der Mark to leave Portimao in a positive mood, especially given how his weekend progressed.

“I think at the end it’s been quite a good weekend,” van der Mark told WorldSBK.com after Race 2 in Portimao.

“We made some good steps during the test and [on Saturday] I struggled a lot in the race, so I wasn’t happy with the result. But today we found some extra speed and I felt some more confidence, and to end up with fifth is not bad.”

Van der Mark, along with Yamaha's Andrea Locatelli, was somewhat keeping pace with third-placed Alvaro Bautista in Race 2 before the red flag was thrown on lap eight.

Locatelli said that he felt the red flag had cost him a chance at the podium, because after the red flag he changed tyres and then felt a vibration in the restarted race.

Van der Mark, on the other hand, was less sure that he’d lost a potential rostrum.

“It’s hard to say, because I had a strong pace then but it was still quite a long race so we didn’t really know what to expect,” he said.

“But I was happy that I had a good restart and stayed out of trouble.

“I tried as much as I could to fight for the podium, but it was good that, even though I was riding alone, we had a good pace and I pulled a big gap to the guys behind me.”

After Ducati dominated the Australian Round in February, things were slightly more even between the Panigales and the rest of the bikes in Portugal.

Van der Mark was wary of the swing in performance difference, though, due to the different characteristics of the Phillip Island and Portimao layouts. Assen, he said, where round three of this year's World Superbike Championship will be held on 11-13 April, would be a better indicator of where the balance of performance really lies.

“Honestly, Portimao and Phillip Island are completely different tracks and this track has a lot of hard braking and slow corners which suit us better now,” he said.

“Assen is a bit of a combination of both, so I think there we will see the real level.”