Team Busquets’ HP2 Sport out on track. (Photo: BMW) » More Photos

There was no such misfortune this year though, and after 696 laps, 24 hours, two minutes and 18 seconds of non-stop race action, the Busquets team brought the HP2 Sport home in fifth place overall, and third in the Superbike class. This was the first time in almost 50 years that a BMW team has been on the podium in Barcelona. The last victory was in 1959 when Bruce Daniel and Peter Darvill won on a 600cc BMW at the old Montmelo circuit.

BMW Motorrad’s Gerhard Lindner – a former racer and Motorrad journalist, who is now responsible for product validation and the long-distance durability test development of the company’s series production motorcycles – was delighted at the team’s results in Barcelona against more than 50 teams mostly riding four-cylinder Japanese race machines.

“This was a fantastic result for all of us and I’m proud to have been asked to ride in the team,” he said. “To finish fifth overall and third in our class is a major achievement and shows the true potential of the HP2 Sport as an endurance racer. The bike had a completely stock engine and the Busquet technicians – with a little help from Thomas Eckhard at Wittech (who prepare the works endurance machines) – fitted the big 24-litre fuel tank, a quick-change system for the rear wheel and an Akrapovic race exhaust.