The man of the moment in the first race of the IDM Supersport at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben is Marvin Siebdrath (17/Team Füsport – RT Motorsports by SKM-Kawasaki). The Kawasaki rider battled it out until the very end with defending champion Lennox Lehmann (15/Freudenberg KTM WorldSSP TEAM), who missed out on victory by a mere 0.079 seconds. Third place went to class newcomer Twan Smits (Apreco).
The weather conditions: anything but peace, joy, and sunshine. Instead, wind, changing conditions, and a course that was 60 percent dry made for challenging conditions for the riders.
The race got off to a flying start with Dirk Geiger (18/Freudenberg KTM WorldSSP Team) shooting past pole-sitter Siebdrath and moving straight from second place to the lead. By the end of the first two corners, the Mannheim native had already built up a 0.8-second lead. But his lead lasted only until the first back straight, where he was caught by his two pursuers, Siebdrath and Lehmann, who took advantage of the slipstream.
From then on, a cat-and-mouse game ensued among the leading trio, with constant overtaking maneuvers over several laps. However, Dirk Geiger, who had led at the start, was the first to fall behind, unable to keep up due to an electronics issue. Gradually, the KTM rider was passed by the field and ultimately finished in 12th place. “We had already experienced the electronics issue on Friday during free practice, but were able to fix it for qualifying. For reasons we haven’t yet determined, it unfortunately resurfaced in the middle of the race,” explained Freudenberg KTM WorldSSP Team Manager Carsten Freudenberg after the race.
Meanwhile, Siebdrath and Lehmann engaged in a series of duels—partly tactical, partly spontaneous—around the midpoint of the race. But neither rider’s strategy paid off—though Siebdrath’s ended with a narrow, if luckier, victory: “For me, it was more of a spontaneous race than a tactical one. I didn’t want to ride at the front the whole time and do all the work. My plan was to let Lennox pass and then attack later. But at some point, he stopped making any moves to pass me. So I decided on the spot to go on the offensive,” said Marvin Siebdrath, winner of the first SSP 300 race of the season.
The outcome of this two-way battle remained uncertain right up until the final lap. Ultimately, Lennox Lehmann suffered a front-end slide in the first corner, which cost him the crucial few meters he needed to secure his first IDM SSP 300 race win and left him in second place: “Unfortunately, I couldn’t pull off my planned attack on the final lap because of the front-end slide,” Lehmann said afterward. He added: “But there’s still a second race today.”
Twan Smits secured third place. The Dutch rider comes from the Yamaha R3 bLu cRU Challenge team’s junior squad. Behind him was Belgian rider Luca De Vleeschauwer (18/Füsport Motorsports by SKM-Kawasaki), followed by German rider Micky Winkler (19/Kawasaki Weber-Motos Racing), who appears to be finding his rhythm again after a difficult season last year.
Lucy Michel (16/Suzuki Laux) surprisingly finished in 11th place. As a result, Sarah Heide’s teammate narrowly missed the top 10. Toni Erhard, the 2018 champion, had to retire early after a crash in the first third of the race.
Race 1 Results:
- Marvin SIEBDRATH (D/Kawasaki)
- Lennox LEHMANN (D/KTM)
- Twan SMITS (NL/Yamaha)
- Luca DE VLEESCHAUWER (BEL/Kawasaki)
- Micky WINKLER (D/Kawasaki)
- Oliver SVENDSEN (DK/Yamaha)
- Sven DOORNENBAL (NL/KTM)
- Leo RAMMERSTORFER (AUT/KTM)
- Troy BEINLICH (D/Kawasaki)
- Filip FEIGL (CZ/Kawasaki)