One highlight follows another as the International German Motorcycle Championship (IDM) enters its second round of the season this week. From June 6 to 9, 2019, the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben will be bustling with activity. Germany’s premier road racing series will take to the track with all of its solo championship classes as part of the FIM Endurance World Championship.
Fans can look forward to a thrilling lineup featuring IDM sprint races and the FIM Endurance World Championship 8-Hour Race, with the IDM classes kicking things off. It’s a first for them to be featured all at once during this major event, but the IDM has once again proven itself a guarantee of top-notch racing and full fields of competitors.
In the IDM Superbike 1000, Julian Puffe has now spent three weeks enjoying the spotlight of this prestigious class. The 23-year-old from Schleiz has led the standings in the top division since the season opener at the Lausitzring. Defending champion Ilya Mikhalchik, who was in the lead in the second race after winning the first but was suddenly slowed down by an electronics malfunction, had to watch helplessly as his alpha Racing-Van Zon teammate surged to the front of the race and the overall standings with over 200 PS and well over 300 km/h.
Mikhalchik will do everything in his power to make amends at Oschersleben. But to return to the top, the Ukrainian must not only defeat Puffe, but also Erwan Nigon (Kawasaki) and Ricardo Brink (Yamaha). It’s no easy task. Both the Frenchman and the Dutchman are blessed with riding skills that they will certainly put to good use.
Added to this is the thrill of the new starting grid format for the second race in the IDM Superbike 1000, introduced in 2019. It applies to the top nine riders from the first race. The top three will start from the third row. Ahead of them will be the seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-place finishers from the previous race. At the very front are the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-place finishers from Race 1.
The outcome of this system’s debut in the IDM Superbike 1000 made history. With BMW, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha, all five motorcycle brands represented in the class were in the top five positions at the Lausitzring. In Oschersleben, the deck will be reshuffled.
In the IDM Supersport 600 class—the tried-and-true mid-range category with about 135 PS and a top speed of 270 km/h—a head-to-head battle is expected between Tom Toparis, Max Enderlein, and Sander Kroeze. Yamaha has firmly dominated the podium in this class. Sander Kroeze from the Netherlands and IDM rookie Tom Toparis from Australia each won a race at the season opener. Max Enderlein from Hohenstein-Ernstthal in Saxony had led both races for long stretches, however. An ignition failure dropped him back to second place each time. What makes things particularly exciting: Enderlein heads to Oschersleben trailing Toparis by just a single point. The Supersport 600 field is packed to capacity, as riders from the Superstock 600 class are also competing here, albeit in a separate standings category. Fewer modifications are allowed on the Superstock motorcycles than on the IDM machines. The Superstock class is contested as a cup series. Stefan Ströhlein has been the standout rider so far, with two wins on a Yamaha YZF-R6.
In the IDM Supersport 300 junior class, young riders aged 13 and older take to the track. A sophisticated system ensures a level playing field among the various motorcycle setups. And it’s working: Rick Dunnik, Colin Velthuizen from the Netherlands, and David Kuban from the Czech Republic lead the championship after two races. They ride Yamaha, Kawasaki, and KTM. Defending champion Toni Erhard (KTM), who retired from the first race and finished second in the second race, has his work cut out for him if he wants to repeat last year’s success.
You can count the days until the next race on one hand. The first qualifying sessions will take place as early as this coming Thursday, June 6, 2019, at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben. On Saturday, five IDM races will be held. On Sunday, another IDM Supersport 600 race will serve as the sprint-distance finale, before the starting signal for the fourth race in the World Endurance Championship is given shortly after noon.