Blue skies, crowds of fans, excitement, and drama—the second IDM weekend of the season had everything that makes for top-notch motorsports.
In early summer weather, significantly more motorsports fans than last year flocked to the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben and enthusiastically watched six IDM main races, which featured racing at the highest level. While two riders—Florian Alt in the IDM Superbike class and Walid Khan in the Supersport 300 class—were able to reinforce their title ambitions, Melvin van der Voort suffered a significant setback in the IDM Supersport class. Ilya Mikhalchik is also under pressure following the second race weekend.
IDM Superbike
In the first race of the IDM Superbike series at Oschersleben, the outcome was decided even before the official start. During the formation lap, IDM returnee and title contender Ilya Mikhalchik (BCC ALPHA VAN ZON BMW) crashed after a highside and was thus out of the race.
Up to that point, a thrilling battle was expected between the Ukrainian driver and championship leader Florian Alt (Holzhauer Racing Promotion). Although Alt had been the fastest on both Friday and Saturday, Mikhalchik qualified in second place, just over seven hundredths of a second behind Alt.
But even without Mikhalchik, the Honda rider was unable to secure an unchallenged start-to-finish victory. While Toni Finsterbusch (GERT56) and Vladimir Leonov (Hertrampf Yamaha Racing) were part of the leading group in the early stages, fellow Honda rider Hannes Soomer (Enemat Enos Motorsport) and Bastien Mackels (SWPN Yamaha) subsequently challenged Florian Alt for the race win. Soomer put massive pressure on Alt, and there was even a collision that forced Soomer into the grass. After that, the former Supersport World Championship rider’s rhythm was ruined, and he fell back to third place.
From then on, it was Bastien Mackels who attacked Alt and literally battled the Honda rider for the maximum points right up to the finish line. In the end, Mackels fell just 0.135 seconds short of victory.
The second Superbike race was once again particularly favorable for the Honda riders. In the early laps, however, it was Toni Finsterbusch who set the pace. The GERT56 rider started from pole position thanks to the reverse grid, capitalized on his strong starting position, and came out of the first lap in the lead.
Things went much less smoothly for his teammate Patrick Hobelsberger, who was unable to capitalize on his second-place starting position and fell far behind. By the fourth lap, Bastien Mackels and Florian Alt had already staked their claim to the podium and managed to pull ahead of Toni Finsterbusch.
Shortly thereafter, Ilya Mikhalchik also began his charge from the front of the midfield. The unlucky driver from Race 1 fought his way up to Hannes Soomer, who was in fourth place, by the end of the first half of the race and was, at that point, the only driver in the field capable of posting 1:25-minute laps.
Soomer and Mikhalchik then benefited from a thrilling three-way battle between Alt, Mackels, and Finsterbusch and were able to close the gap to the leading trio just before the end of the race. While Hannes Soomer managed to push his Honda past Toni Finsterbusch and then Bastien Mackels with two flawless passing maneuvers, Ilya Mikhalchik’s second race also ended in the gravel trap after an attempt to pass Bastien Mackels, who was in third place.
While Florian Alt extends his lead in the championship with his third consecutive victory and Hannes Soomer moves up to second place overall, the Ukrainian falls far behind in the title race after finishing last for the third time in four races.
IDM Supersport
The Superbike races offered everything a motorsports fan could hope for, and the Supersport races were equally hard to beat in terms of excitement and drama. In the first Supersport race, one of the favorites, Melvin van der Voort (SWPN Yamaha), went down in the second corner; the pole-sitter and double winner from the Sachsenring crashed over his front wheel while leading the race. This put his compatriot Twan Smits (Team Apreco) in the lead, but he was soon overtaken by Thomas Gradinger (Eder Racing) and Martin Vugrinec (//ART DREIER RACING TEAM), dropping him back to third place.
Gradinger managed to stay in the lead for a long time, but after nearly high-siding, the Yamaha rider had to swerve into the grass at the exit of the Hasseröder curve and dropped back to sixth place. Vugrinec also went wide as a result of the slide, allowing Twan Smits to retake the lead, which he would not relinquish for the rest of the race.
In the penultimate lap, Vugrinec also crashed, handing second place to the Czech rider Michal Prasek and securing Triumph’s first podium finish for a Supersport Next Generation bike with the Street Triple 765 RS. Andreas Kofler of the M32 Racing Team rounded out the podium.
In the second SSP race, Melvin van der Voort got off to a clean start as planned, and the Dutchman entered the first corner in the lead. The start didn’t go as well for Michal Prasek. After finishing second in the first race, the Czech rider ended up in the gravel trap just a few hundred meters into the second race. For Martin Vugrinec, too, the race was over by the second lap.
While it looked in the early laps as though Thomas Gradinger could keep pace with Melvin van der Voort, the Austrian came under pressure from Twan Smits toward the end of the first third of the race and was eventually overtaken by the Dutchman shortly thereafter. While Andreas Kofler, in fourth place, was having a relatively unchallenged race at that point, Yves Stadelmann (Kiefer Racing) and Luca de Vleeschauwer (Kawasaki Weber Motos Racing) battled it out behind him for the final spot in the top 5, which the Kawasaki rider ultimately secured.
Until shortly before the end of the race, Melvin van der Voort had extended his lead to over 3.5 seconds, but crashed at the start/finish line on the penultimate lap. Although the SWPN rider was able to restart his motorcycle and finish the race in twelfth place, the victory went to his compatriot Twan Smits. Thomas Gradinger and Andreas Kofler rounded out the podium ahead of de Vleeschauwer and Stadelmann.
IDM SupeRsport 300
The Supersport 300 race provided the first highlight of the weekend as early as Saturday evening. Due to their participation in the World Championship weekend taking place simultaneously in Misano, some of the top-five riders from the Sachsenring—Lennox Lehmann, Dirk Geiger (both Team Freudenberg), and Petr Svoboda (FÜSPORT – RT Motorsport by SKM – Kawasaki)—were absent, but this had no impact on the racing action.
Pole-sitter and KTM rider Whalid Khan (Team Freudenberg) made it clear from the very first meter that he would be the one to watch this weekend, but reigning champion Marvin Siebdrath (Kiefer Racing), Kas Beekmans (Apreco Yamaha), Ferre Fleerackers (B.art Racing Team), Inigo Iglesias (FÜSPORT – RT Motorsport by SKM – Kawasaki), and Khan’s teammate Dustin Schneider didn’t let Khan pull away until shortly before the end of the race, repeatedly swapping the lead.
Inigo Iglesias, in particular, managed time and again to edge past the fastest driver in practice. By the end of the race, however, Khan had won the duel, and Iglesias even had to push hard to avoid losing second place to Walid Khan’s teammate, Dustin Schneider.
In the second race as well, Khan took the lead right from the start and had to fend off repeated attacks throughout the race. This time, however, it was a three-way battle between Khan, Iglesias, and Schneider. While Khan had already built up a small lead at the start of the final lap in Race 2, the battle for second place between Inigo Iglesias and Dustin Schneider wasn’t decided until after the checkered flag, with the outcome determined by a photo finish. In the end, Dustin Schneider had a narrow lead of just a front wheel’s length.