Markus Reiterberger led for sixteen and a half laps in the first IDM Superbike 1000 race at the Schleizer Dreieck, then Ilya Mikhalchik made his move and won the race.
Ilya Mikhalchik (EGS-alpha-Van Zon-BMW) admits he’s not a fan of the Schleizer Dreieck, but that didn’t stop him from putting on a spectacular show alongside Markus Reiterberger (BCC Racing). For 18 laps, the Ukrainian stayed in the Bavarian’s slipstream, studying his every move and biding his time for an overtaking maneuver. All the while, Reiterberger squeezed every last bit of performance out of the BMW S 1000 RR. In the Seng, the lowest point on the track, he leaned the bike into the corner like no other rider.
The course demands everything: gradients of up to 18%, and speeds of up to 240 km/h are recorded even in the turns. At times, Reiti and Mikhalchik flew past the spectators side by side. The crowd in the stands at Buchhübel was going wild. And on the final lap, Mikhalchik, riding the newer BMW M 1000 RR, edged out his German teammate. Perhaps it was also because Reiterberger should have chosen a different tire: “I felt better on the SC0 during practice.” At 3:20 p.m., the 27-year-old will have his next chance to celebrate his IDM comeback with a victory.
Bastien Mackels (Team SWPN) finished third and rode his own race. The Belgian had plenty of room in front of and behind him and defended Yamaha’s honor on the YZF-R1M.
A fierce battle raged for the remaining positions among Luca Grünwald (Kiefer Racing Team), Julian Puffe (GERT56), Alex Polita (HRP Honda), and Florian Alt (Wilbers-BMW-Racing). And here, too, it was a real spectacle. Alt, who had to start from 22nd—and thus last—place due to a regulatory violation the previous day, actually managed to fight his way up to fourth place. Local hero Puffe finished fifth, while his teammate Toni Finsterbusch crashed in his first race back after a protracted foot injury. Alex Polita secured a valuable top-ten finish for Honda in sixth place.
Luca Grünwald, in P7, had made the wrong tire choice, and championship leader Dominic Schmitter (Hess Racing) finished only twelfth. The Swiss driver had already said beforehand: “The top three are out of reach for me here. I know how I should be driving—for example, keeping my foot on the gas during weight transfer—but I still end up closing the throttle. It’s also too risky for me to experiment too much here, because the run-off areas aren’t like those on a permanent racetrack.” But he hadn’t expected to finish this far back either.
Incidentally, at least one rider from each of the brands competing in the premier class—BMW, Honda, Kawasaki, and Yamaha—made it into the top ten.
1. Ilya MIKHALCHIK (UKR/BMW)
2. Markus REITERBERGER (GER/BMW)
3. Bastien MACKELS (BEL/Yamaha)
4. Florian ALT (GER/BMW)
5. Julian PUFFE (GER/BMW)
6. Alessandro POLITA (ITA/Honda)
7. Luca GRÜNWALD (GER/BMW)
8. Vladimir LEONOV (RUS/Yamaha)
9. Jan MOHR (AUT/BMW)
10. Valentin DEBISE (FRA/Kawasaki)