BMW Motorrad Motorsport press release:

The fifth round of this year’s Superbike World Championship takes place at the historic Autodromo di Monza and both BMW Motorrad Motorsport riders Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus are looking forward to tackling the 5.793 kilometre circuit.
It is one of the few circuits in this year’s calendar where the team have tested already and so, for once, they will be not be starting at a big disadvantage. Monza is renowned for its high speed straights and close finishes and last year’s first race saw the top four separated by just 0.771 at the flag. Race two’s top three were covered by 0.051, with the winner taking the chequered flag by only 0.009 of a second!

Troy
At least we have tested at Monza this year, so we will not be trying to play catch-up as much as we have to do normally. Monza has some fast straights and is a track where slipstreaming can play an important part. It’s possible to be in fourth place exiting the Ascari chicane on the last lap and still win if you can take advantage of the draft. But, before we even get to that stage, we have to be in a good qualifying situation. Superpole has not worked out well for us so far and considering that, I think we’ve done well to get the top tens we have. I hope that we can qualify better at Monza and get even better results.

Ruben
Each time out we learn something new about the bike and get ideas about what to do to make it better. The other teams have a big history compared to us and so I feel we have done very well so far. But that doesn’t mean that we all don’t want more, because of course we do. Our top tens are very good, but Troy and I are racers and we are always want to higher finishes. If we can get a good set-up early on (and I can get rid of my ‘black Fridays’), and do well in Superpole, then we might have a better chance of good results.

Berti Hauser (Director BMW Motorrad Motorsport)
Monza will be interesting for sure, but at least we have been there before. Even so, the experience we gained in our two day test is relatively small compared to our competitors and so we need to do well in practice and qualifying. Superpole has been a problem for us so far and we haven’t been able to get the bike to perform consistently well enough on qualifying tyres in Q1 and Q2. It would be good to get into Q1 and not have to start from the back of the grid for a change. If we could do that, it would be very interesting to see what would happen.