After twelve years, the International German Motorcycle Championship (IDM) returned to Most this weekend under the direction of Motor Presse Stuttgart. The comeback of Germany’s top motorcycle road racing series was celebrated by 3,000 spectators. Spectacular passing moves, shifts in the overall standings, a new track record, and the first announcements for 2020 provided fans with top-notch entertainment.
There was a change at the top of the standings in the IDM Superbike 1000 class. Ilya Mikhalchik (alpha Racing-Van Zon-BMW) won both races. After just the first race, he took the championship lead from his teammate Julian Puffe. At the same time, the 22-year-old Ukrainian set a new track record at the Autodrom Most with a time of 1:35.430 minutes. That time corresponds to an average speed of 157.139 km/h.
Since Puffe crashed in both races, he left important championship points on the track in Northern Bohemia. After nine races, defending champion Mikhalchik has pulled ahead of the 23-year-old from the racing town of Schleiz by 41 points.
In the first race, the new leader in the IDM premier class was followed by Marc Moser (MGM Performance Racing, Yamaha) and Alessandro Polita (Holzhauer Racing Promotion, Honda) from Italy. This meant that three riders from three different countries, riding three different motorcycle brands, stood on the podium.
This was an IDM first for this combination. Polita was the first to get the only Honda in the field this far up the field.
In the second race of the season to be run under the reverse-grid system, Mikhalchik—who, as the winner of Race 1, had to start from ninth place—took the win ahead of Pepijn Bijsterbosch (Dutch Comfort Houses, BMW). The Dutchman had seized the moment and turned his pole position into a second-place finish. Polita was in third place until the final corner, but then Moser launched a decisive attack from behind and snatched the podium spot from the Italian by a hair’s breadth. The two were separated by 0.013 seconds at the finish line. Kawasaki rider Erwan Nigon (Kawasaki Weber-Motos Racing Team) had a rough time at Most. The newly crowned Endurance World Champion crashed in the first race. In the second, he finished sixth. For Suzuki, Toni Finsterbusch (Suzuki Mayer) saved the day with two seventh-place finishes.
In the IDM Supersport 600 class, Max Enderlein secured a flawless one-two finish. The podium remained unchanged after both races and was firmly in Yamaha’s hands. Enderlein (Freudenberg WorldSSP Team) finished between second-place Marc Buchner (Buchner Motorsport) and third-place Martin Vugrinec (UNIOR Racing Team) in both races.
Enderlein has thus moved another step closer to his goal of defending his title. Theoretically, he could be crowned the new champion as early as the next race in Assen on the second weekend of September. However, “Spider” Martin Vugrinec provided the real sensation in the 600cc class during the first race. Starting from 18th on the grid, he surged up to fourth place as early as the first lap. The Croatian set a pace that left his rivals in the dust. On the very last lap, he also overtook Tom Toparis, securing his spot on the podium, which he scrambled onto like a spider. The Croatian also knocked the Australian out of second place in the championship standings.
In the IDM Supersport 300 junior class, the usual scramble ensued. Only Victor Steeman (KTM), a guest rider from the World Championship, stayed out of the fray and won both races. However, as a guest rider, he did not earn any points. Behind him, a group of six riders became entangled in the first race, including Angelo Licciardi (Kawasaki), Rick Dunnik (Yamaha), Walid Khan (Kawasaki), David Kuban (KTM), Toni Erhard (KTM), Melvin van der Voort (Yamaha), and Ruben Bijman (Yamaha) in a series of one-on-one battles with constant position changes. The final lap was another nail-biter. Local hero Kuban faltered and crashed. Walid Khan, who had started from eighth place, was suddenly waved off in second place. The Dutchman earned the full 25 championship points in his first IDM race. Angelo Licciardi took the checkered flag in third place. Toni Erhard (KTM) had to settle for sixth place. He was the best German in the field. One woman earned four points: Nina Schubrikoff on a Yamaha.
Erhard earned full points for that in the second race. However, the 18-year-old can forget about defending his title. He won’t be able to reach the top in the remaining six races. “All that matters to me now are individual results, but this win really feels good,” says the Schwarzenberg native, whose first half of the season was very up and down. Championship leader Angelo Licciardi was next to add another 20 points to his total. With this result, the Belgian Kawasaki rider extended his lead over Dunnik, Colin Velthuizen (Kawasaki), and Kuban. The battle for the positions behind Licciardi is wide open. Ruben Bijman (Yamaha) and Troy Beinlich are also in the mix.
In the IDM Sidecar 600cc class, there’s no getting past seven-time world champion Tim Reeves and his passenger Mark Wilkes (Adolf RS F1 Yamaha). In both races, the British superstars were followed across the finish line by the German duo Josef Sattler and Uwe Neubert (Adolf RS F1 Kawasaki) as well as Swiss rider Jakob Rutz with German passenger Björn Bosch (LCR F1 Yamaha). There are already some interesting plans for 2020. Next year, the travel company Bonovo Express will sponsor not only Reeves/Wilkes but also Sattler/Neubert. “We want to form a partnership with both teams in the IDM and the World Championship. In addition, we’ll bring a rookie team on board or support teams via wildcard,” explains CEO Jürgen Röder.
In the IDM Sidecar class for engines up to 1,000 cc, Mike Roscher and Anna Burkard (LCR F1 BMW) have taken the lead in the overall standings. The German-Swiss duo has already secured six victories, five of them in a row. Scott Lawrie and Emanuelle Clement (LCR F1 Suzuki) have also made it onto the podium twice, while Andres Nussbaum and Manuel Hirschi (LCR F1 Suzuki) have done so only once. The Swiss pair had led the overall standings until the Most round.
The sidecar qualifying session and the first race were marred by serious accidents. On Friday, the French duo Michael Ouger and Sébastien Seret were involved in an accident. They are in the hospital, and their condition is stable. Helmut Lingen and Carolin Zimmermann, who were in an accident on Saturday, have been discharged and returned home.