Ilya Mikhalchik, Bastien Mackels, Julian Puffe – the formidable BMW armada will line up on the front row of the IDM Superbike 1000 grid tomorrow. And Mackels of Wilbers-BMW, who still has a chance to snatch the title from Mikhalchik, is once again right in the thick of it between the alpha Racing-Van Zon-BMW riders. It’s going to be a heated battle. Mackels is now 0.277 seconds and 31 points behind the Ukrainian, but he’ll stay in the hunt until the checkered flag drops for the last time this year. Team boss Benny Wilbers explains: “We recently talked about what happened to Michael Ranseder a few years ago. His engine broke down on the grid and he couldn’t race. He won the second race, but in the end, he missed out on the points he lost in the first one.”
No matter how the 2018 title race turns out in the end, Wilbers wants to continue working with Mackels in 2019. He is the top choice, known as a talented development rider. And a new BMW will be launched in 2019.
He may well come up against Mikhalchik again. The 22-year-old has set his sights on breaking into the Superbike World Championship. As is well known, that’s a rocky road, and the Ukrainian is still working his way up the ranks.
Julian Puffe had a serious crash in the second qualifying session. His S 1000 RR is a write-off—both rims are broken, and the rear end is warped. In short: there’s nothing left to salvage. He’ll be riding his backup bike tomorrow. Puffe himself was uninjured, but he retreated to the farthest corner of the paddock and stayed there for several minutes.
Guest rider Florian Alt (Yamaha) qualified for fourth place on the grid and was the fastest non-BMW rider. He is followed by two Suzuki rivals, Dominic Schmitter and Toni Finsterbusch .
Daniel Kartheininger will start from the very back of the grid, as he was unable to set a qualifying time because his Yamaha was still in the shop after crashing during free practice.