Home favourite Michael van der Mark names target for Dutch WorldSBK

WorldSBK’s sole Dutch rider, Michael van der Mark, says he “really wants to be on the podium,” at this weekend’s World Superbike round at Assen, having not finished on the podium at home with BMW.

Van der Mark’s last podium at Assen came back in 2019 when he was second in Race 2. Third in Race 1, too, that weekend on the Yamaha, the current BMW rider has strong historic form at the circuit where he took his first World Superbike podium in 2015.

“It’s always nice to have your home round and I love being here at Assen,” van der Mark said ahead of the Dutch Round.

“It’s a track I really enjoy riding, especially with how things went in the last round at Portimao, [so I’m] really looking forward to it. I think we could be quite strong.”

He added: “I really want to be on the podium here. As we’ve seen before, the field is very competitive and close, so we have to work on details. I think we can be quite strong, and my dream is to be on the podium.”

Reflecting on Portimao, where he was able to finish in the top-six in both long races, van der Mark stressed the importance of the pre-event test at the Portuguese venue two weeks before racing there.

“The best thing for us was we had a good test at Portimao,” he said.

“We had many ideas after Australia, and we needed to find something.

“At Portimao, we had the package ready, and we had something where we feel comfortable; it’s not the best yet but at least we have something we can be very consistent with.”