While the teams of Tim Reeves/Kevin Rousseau and Bennie Streuer/Ilse de Haas are recording their first test successes with the Bonovo action powered by MGM Racing teams, Josef “Sepp” Sattler is in a bind. He urgently needs a passenger for the upcoming sidecar season in the IDM and World Championship.
It couldn’t have gotten any worse. A day and a half before the entire team was set to head to Assen for testing this week, the phone rang at Sattler’s home in deep Bavaria. On the other end: Jeroen Remmé, his co-driver. An old injury had flared up. The metal plate that had been implanted in the Dutchman months ago following an accident had caused a severe infection in his elbow. It doesn’t look like Remmé will be able to get back in the cockpit anytime soon.
In Assen, Björn Bosch stepped in at the last minute. That wasn’t easy. “Since Björn is taking a break this year, he obviously didn’t get a license. But you can’t race without one. Luckily, everyone knows someone who knows someone, so it still worked out,” Sattler explains. “Björn was very helpful during testing, but this will be a one-time thing,” Sattler notes. “I’m now looking for a really good co-driver and urgently need a replacement for 2020. We have to get through all the races in two months.”
The IDM season opener will take place at the TT Circuit in Assen from August 14 to 16. The first World Championship race is scheduled for September 4–6 in Rijeka, Croatia. By then, the three sidecars of the Bonovo action powered by MGM Racing Team should be competitive.
Everything is going smoothly for Bennie Streuer and Ilse de Haas. The 2015 sidecar world champion and 2016 IDM champion completed several laps at Assen with his partner, and Streuer is convinced “that after making some minor adjustments to the mapping and the chassis, everything is now perfect for the first IDM race at our home track.” The 36-year-old Streuer wants to win and, ideally, become world champion once again.
If it weren’t for the fact that multiple world champion and IDM sidecar champion Tim Reeves is also on our team. The Brit can’t complain about his current form either. “Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus, our data engineer was still stuck in England, so we had to deal with a few challenges. But aside from that, things went well in Assen. Our preparations for the first IDM round here are on track. We were fast enough, and Bennie was also quick on the track, so it was a solid test,” the defending champion summarizes.
Sattler is now falling behind. After the February test in Spain, things looked very different. It seemed they had found the ideal passenger in Jeroen Remmé. “We got along great in Cartagena, and riding with him is really smooth.” Since the motorcycle is still in the development phase, a lot needs to happen in the coming days. “On July 22, we’ll tackle the whole thing again during another test in Oschersleben.”