It took seven laps for pole-sitter Tim Reeves and his passenger Kevin Rousseau (Bonovo Action Team/Adolf RS F1) to make up for their completely botched start and return to the lead. They won the first race of the weekend in the IDM Sidecar class ahead of their teammates Bennie Streuer and Jeroen Remmé.
It was a tough start for seven-time world champion Tim Reeves. As if the accelerator weren’t working, his sidecar team got off to a slow start instead of taking off at full speed as usual. The other two Bonovo Action teams—Streuer/Remmé and Josef Sattler/Luca Schmidt—didn’t let this opportunity slip by. They took turns leading the race. Sattler managed to put pressure on Streuer in the early laps but couldn’t keep up with his pace at the front for long. Meanwhile, Reeves fought his way forward from the back, position by position, caught up with his teammates, and eventually passed them. At the finish line, he admitted, “That wasn’t an easy race for us. We had to fight hard to get back to the front.”
The race wasn’t easy for the second-place finishers, Streuer and Remmé, either. They struggled with transmission problems that became apparent during the race. “In the last five laps, we couldn’t accelerate as we wanted to,” Streuer explained. However, the Dutchman doubted whether he would have been able to hold his own against Reeves and defeat him without those technical problems.
Guest riders Mike Roscher and Anna Burkard finished in third place. In their 1000 cm³ LCR F1 sidecar, they completed lap after lap at their own pace, followed by Peter Kimeswenger and Kevin Kölsch (LCR F1), Max Zimmermann and Ferry Schwegler (Adolf RS F1), and Markus Schwegler and Ondrej Kopecky (LCR F1).
The weekend, which had gotten off to a completely disastrous start for Josef Sattler and Luca Schmidt, continued in the first race. First, the engine blew up during free practice, then they suffered an oil leak in qualifying. In the race, a constantly overheating engine ultimately caused them to lose a total of five positions. “The main thing is to finish in the points,” was now the Bavarian’s goal, which is why he drove through the pit lane two laps before the end of the race to let the engine cool down at low speed. At the finish line, the championship leaders secured eighth place.
What happens next will be decided on Sunday at 4:50 p.m. The race will be broadcast on the IDM livestream at www.idm.de.
IDM Sidecar, Race 1:
- REEVES/ROUSSEAU (GBR/FRA)
- STREUER/REMMÈ (NLD/NLD)
- ROSCHER/BURKARD (GER/SUI)
- KIMESWENGER/KÖLSCH (AUT/DEU)
- ZIMMERMANN/SEEGERS (GER/NED)
- SCHWEGLER/KOPECKY (GER/CZE)