With five rounds already completed and still another eight to go in the 2011 World Superbike championship, the 2012 silly season is about to take off with the first rumor that regards the BMW Motorrad Motorsports team.
According to Italian website omnicorse.
it (so take it with a grain a salt) the German factory team has already started to shop around for new riders as they are not completely satisfied with Leon Haslam’s technical input on development and Troy Corser, who still occasionally shows flashes of brilliance, despite the evident shortcomings of the BMW S1000 RR’s very complex electronics package that is F1 based and hard to set-up and the excessive tire wear.
So who is on BMW’s hypothetical shopping list as Corser’s contract is up at the end of the season? Carlos Checa and Max Biaggi.
You can snicker now.
Taking away Biaggi from Aprilia is virtually impossible as the Italian renewed his contract for another two years and is the national symbol of the Italian team.
Carlos Checa also has a renewed 2 year contract with Althea Racing, but since the Ducati factory pullout he’s now ruling the roost and has top notch Ducati technicians helping him and apparently can’t wait to test the new Ducati 1200 Superbike, which will undergo a new test in June at the Mugello with Troy Bayliss at the helm.
However BMW is much richer than Ducati, and they could very well make Checa a very indecent and hard to refuse monetary offer to lure him away.
We doubt it, but you never know and as always only time will tell.