“First of all, good racers make teams better,” says GERT56 team boss Karsten Wolf after this year’s first rollout. His second conclusion is, “Good racers need good teams to get better, and that’s exactly what we have.”
Powerful words from a man of stature who, in Rijeka, Croatia, sent his riders Toni Finsterbusch, Patrick Hobelsberger, and Jan-Ole Jähnig out together for the first time on the three new BMW M 1000 RRs. Hobelsberger had previously fine-tuned his Superbike skills under the Spanish sun. Finsterbusch and Jähnig had completed their “break-in program” in Misano, Italy.
On our first day in Croatia, the weather was quite mixed, and we were quite surprised that morning when we saw snow on the peaks around Grobnik as we drove up. On the high plateau, however, conditions improved by the minute. Hobelsberger and Jähnig checked out the track on rain tires, while the experienced Finsterbusch watched the action unfold over a cup of coffee.
What remained of the initial rollout? With conditions constantly improving, Pirelli’s SC1 compounds on day one and SC0 compounds on day two proved to be the right choice. This allowed the team to not only fine-tune various settings but also work on the next generation of the SPV2 Pro suspension, as well as test and adjust several geometric aspects. SPV introduced the fourth evolutionary stage of the shock absorber. While Finsterbusch and Hobelsberger set a fast pace from the start, Jähnig’s first laps in Rijeka were primarily about getting to know the track and making further progress following his switch from the 600cc class to Superbikes. Jähnig showed his potential on these bikes after two days. A crash cost him some practice time, as the bike couldn’t be repaired with the “limited tools” he had on hand.