Michael van der Mark

HONDA RACING INFORMATION

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2014 FIM Supersport World Champion
Pata Honda World Supersport Team
Honda CBR600RR

The Magic Of Mikey

A stellar 2014 season for young Dutchman Michael van der Mark – also known to many of his fans as ‘Magic Mikey’ - delivered the FIM Supersport World Championship title to the Pata Honda rider at Jerez on Sunday 7 September, with two rounds to spare.

Entering the ninth race with a 53-point lead, any kind of finish ahead of his closest competitors would have taken the championship win. As it transpired, he had to earn his first full FIM Championship the way he had won the 2012 UEM Superstock 600 European Championship title with Honda – by withstanding and ultimately overcoming intense race-long pressure from his chief rivals.

He won the Jerez WSS race and then the title with some élan and an unquenchable desire to show he was the best. Yet, as a person the off track Michael appears as far removed from the intensity of motorcycle racing as it is possible to be. “I think it is fair to say I am always quiet,” he said, a few days after winning the WSS title. “As soon as I get off the bike I change completely. I enjoy everything to do with family and friends and I do not have one particular thing I spend time on at home - next to racing and training. I just enjoy everything I do. On the bike I am different but at home I am always quite relaxed.
On the bike I can let everything go and I am not as quiet anymore!”

Home is near Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where van der Mark lives with his family. They are obviously a close bunch. Michael still occasionally drives trucks for his father’s transport company – which he did full-time until recently. His mother and sister are still close to Michael even when they are away from home as they both work in his Pata Honda team’s hospitality unit at races.

Only recently van der Mark was able to give up what was almost full-time work on the road for his father, to step-up his training and race preparation regime, but he still keeps his hand in, so to speak. “I drive trucks still sometimes, to help my father, or if I am bored. I have had a truck licence since I was 18, for the big HGV trucks.”

In contrast to his laid-back approach to life and his quietly spoken, almost shy, demeanour van der Mark’s recent racing career has been noisy, highly publicised and intense. Not to mention successful.

Now a rider with two Dutch 125cc titles, two Suzuka 8-Hour race wins, the Superstock 600 European Championship title from 2012 and his current mastery of Supersport, van der Mark has achieved more in his 21 years than most riders have in their entire careers. And yet he is still much nearer the dawn of his racing journey than any twilight stage.

For many pilots with a father who was a successful international racer in his own right, like Michael’s dad Henk van der Mark, competition and experience on motorcycles of all kinds usually comes early. For Michael, this was far from the case, as his first race was when he was 12, on a full sized 125cc Sport Production Aprilia, rather than a mini-moto or other smaller machine.

Michael himself explains his curious lack of early exposure to powered two wheelers. “I had a quad when I was very young, and then a bigger one, but then that stopped as well,” said van der Mark. “I was always busy with my BMX bike, going as fast as possible, so I was never really on a motorcycle. I think I rode a mini-bike twice in Spain when on holiday, but that’s about it.”

Even with his father being a racer, and a Le Mans 24-Hour race winner no less, Michael was never encouraged into racing as he got older. “My father always waited for me to ask if I wanted to race. I think that is the best way for a kid.”

Michael feels no loss from starting racing at the relatively late age compared to many. “I have been riding nearly ten years now and if you have the talent it doesn’t matter when you start.”

For Michael his first taste of racing was at the legendary Assen circuit, in the Dutch Junior Cup in 2005. On his Aprilia RS125 Michael belied his lack of experience to take fourth place at season end. The next year, 2006, he was second in the same series, the year after he was runner-up in the Dutch Open championship, now on a Honda RS125. He was such an instant success he was dubbed Rookie of the Year and one year later took the first of two Dutch Open 125cc titles. Michael also competed abroad in 2008, and in his home 125cc GP at Assen he finished in 26th place.

Another Open title in the Netherlands in 2009, and 18th in the Assen GP, saw him plan a full 125cc GP season the following year.

Financial issues curtailed his adventure in the big paddock but still looking to continue his global ambitions a deal was worked out with his compatriots in the Ten Kate European Superstock
600 Championship team. They gave Michael his first ride at the Magny-Cours round on a CBR600RR where and he finished seventh.

The Ten Kate team have orchestrated Honda’s efforts in the Superbike and Supersport World Championships for over a decade and have one Superbike and now nine Supersport World Championships to their name.

Riding for the Ten Kate Junior Team in the European Superstock 600 Championship on a full–time basis in 2011, Michael secured four race wins in ten rounds and finished a close third in the title chase. He also added Moto2 experience to his portfolio that same year, again at his home circuit of Assen.

With a full year’s experience of racing the 600cc four-stroke Honda, Michael continued his successes in 2012 with the Ten Kate
team. Throughout the season van der Mark
claimed three pole positions, nine podiums and six wins. However, the Championship title was only delivered after an epic final round at Magny-Cours, as he had to fight for every inch all through the race with his one championship rival, with everything to lose if he made a mistake. He won the race to take the title and the admiration of everyone who knew a new star was rising inside the world of production-derived racing.

His win was all the more impressive because in his first ever wildcard race in the Supersport World Championship, at the Moscow round of the series at the end of August, Michael had fallen in practice and broken his collarbone. He therefore had to overcome this drawback on his way to his Supertock 600 championship win in early October.

The next year Michael was ‘promoted’ to the Pata Honda World Supersport team, still operated and managed by the Ten Kate team, riding a full race specification Honda CBR600RR. Michael placed fourth in the Championship but could not quite win a race, despite starting the season with a third and then a second, and taking one more podium before season end. He was the best rookie in the standings.

His personal 2013 highlight, the one that brought him to the attention of an even wider audience in some ways, came at the Suzuka 8-Hour Endurance race. He rode with Leon Haslam and Takumi Takahashi on a MuSashi Harc-Pro Honda CBR1000RR to win what proved to be the first of successive race victories in the biggest race in Japan. He had become the first Dutch rider to win the 8-Hour.

In a relatively short racing career Michael has now taken four championships in seven years. So what makes the difference between being capable of taking the title and being the one to do it?
“I think you have to be consistent and smart,”
said Michael. “Fast, smart and consistent, I think these are the main things. I can do a very fast lap but I can possibly crash so always in the race I take less risk when it is possible. I do not think the head or the heart is more important than the other - it is all things together.”

Michael van der Mark

Date of birth: 26 October 1992
Place of birth: Gouda, Netherlands
Home town: Rotterdam, Netherlands
Race number: 60
Race machine: Pata Honda CBR600RR
First race: 2005 – Assen, Dutch Jr. Cup
World Supersport wildcard debut: 2012 – Moscow World Supersport races: 20 First World Supersport podium: 2013 – Phillip Island Total World Supersport podiums: 11 First World Supersport win: 2014 – Assen Total World Supersport wins: 5

Career Highlights

2005: 4th, Dutch Junior Cup – Aprilia
2006: 2nd, Dutch Junior Cup – Aprilia
2007: 2nd, ONK Dutch 125cc championship – Honda
2008: ONK Dutch 125cc CHAMPION – Honda
2008: 3rd, IDM 125cc championship – Honda
2008: Selected CEV Spanish championship – Honda
2008: 26th, Dutch 125cc GP – Honda
2009: ONK Dutch 125cc CHAMPION – Honda
2009: 5th, IDM 125cc championship – Honda
2009: Selected CEV Spanish championship – Honda
2009: 18th, Dutch 125cc GP – Honda
2010: 125cc Grands Prix – Lambretta
2010: 7th, Dutch 125cc GP
2010: Debut, European Superstock 600 championship - Honda
2011: 3rd, European STK 600 championship – Honda
2011: Wildcard – Moto2 GP, Assen
2012: European Superstock 600 CHAMPION – Honda
2013: 4th, World Supersport championship – Honda
2013: Winner, Suzuka 8-hours – Honda
2014: Winner, Suzuka 8-hours – Honda
2014: WORLD SUPERSPORT CHAMPION – Honda CBR600RR

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