The second round of the IDM Superbike 1000 at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben marked a breakthrough for Kawasaki. Erwan Nigon finally delivered the long-awaited victory for the Green team and put them in the lead in the standings. Ilya Mikhalchik finished second on the BMW S 1000 RR, ahead of his Dutch teammate Pepijn Bijsterbosch.
Erwan Nigon thrilled the crowd with a flawless start-to-finish victory. He capitalized fully on his pole position, which he earned due to the new starting grid for the second race. After 18 laps, he finished 1.923 seconds ahead of his closest rival, Ilya Mikhalchik.
Champagne corks popped at the finish line. The Weber Motos team had gathered for the award ceremony, as had the French endurance team for which Nigon will compete in tomorrow’s 8-hour race in the FIM Endurance World Championship. The French sang along to their national anthem with great fervor during the podium ceremony. “It’s been an eternity since Kawasaki was at the top,” remarked Jochen Schmid, who had traveled to Oschersleben as a guest of the IDM team. Now 55 years old, he became German Superbike Champion on a Kawasaki in 1995.
Ilya Mikhalchik, who finished second, started from ninth on the grid after winning the first race. By the halfway point of the race, the Ukrainian was already in third place and was increasingly challenging Bijsterbosch. Bijsterbosch managed to fend off the attacks on the 15th lap at the end of the back straight, but by then second place was lost.
Alpha Racing-Van Zon-BMW teammate Julian Puffe, who arrived in Oschersleben as the leader in Germany’s top road racing class, finished fourth. The 23-year-old from Schleiz no longer holds a lead and is now tied with Nigon at the top of the standings. And Mikhalchik has made up ground in leaps and bounds after his retirement at the Lausitzring. He is now just four points behind.
Dominic Schmitter (Yamaha) finished fifth, and Alessandro Polita (Honda) sixth. This time, no Suzuki made it into the top ten. Bobby Bos, who had finished seventh in the first race, retired from the second race while running in fourth place due to a mechanical failure. The fuel pump failed.