BMW Motorrad WorldSBK team boss Shaun Muir wants to finish on a high and challenge for the podium at this weekend's series finale and believes the top-speed gains seen at San Juan will help.
Losail's circuit has a one-kilometre pit straight but the S1000RR showed less of a deficit in Argentina, with Tom Sykes setting a best top speed of 190mph compared to 195mph for the straw-weight Alvaro Bautista on the Pangiale V4R.
“After a quite frustrating weekend at Argentina we now come to our final round of the season and we want to finish on a high," said Muir.
"Overall, we had some good gains in straight-line speed at the last round in Argentina. We hope to carry that into the Qatar round where we know that we will need speed on the long straight.
"Equally, we feel the BMW S 1000 RR will be very strong on other parts of the circuit, with the fast and flowing aspects giving us some definite advantages over the competition.
"I think there’s an outside chance we can challenge for the podium. It would be a sweet finish to our first year in this partnership. The whole team has worked extremely hard and deserves a final bit of success before we focus on 2020.”
