After being eliminated from the title race in the IDM Superbike series in the first race, Patrick Hobelsberger decided before the second round of the season finale at Hockenheim to “just have an awesome Sunday.” That plan culminated in his first victory in Germany’s top motorcycle road racing class. The 2023 season couldn’t have ended any better for the 27-year-old Bavarian from Landau an der Isar.
Just a year ago, Patrick “Pax” was racing in the Supersport class before moving up to the IDM Superbike series in 2023 with Team GERT56 on a BMW. Pax grew increasingly comfortable with the M 1000 RR and had set himself two goals for the season finale: to secure third place in the championship standings and to win one more race. No sooner said than done. In the very last race of the year, he sealed the deal. The race win, with a 2.418-second lead over Honda rider Hannes Soomer from Estonia, sealed the deal. It was also the long-awaited first IDM Superbike victory for his Team GERT56. Three years ago, the team had left the FIM Endurance World Championship in favor of the International German Motorcycle Championship. Now it has finally arrived.
“I’ve done everything necessary for success over the past few weeks,” Hobelsberger says. “Starting from fourth place, I had my second-best qualifying result of the season. That was a good starting position.” Midway through the race, Pax was even leading, but he later crashed; he was able to continue and finished seventh. The reason why his foot kept slipping off the footrest only became clear later. “There was a stone chip in the oil cooler, and the leaking oil was dripping right onto my foot. The hole wasn’t very big; nothing actually got on the tire, just on my boot and the footrest. But I didn’t notice that until after the race—up until then, it just felt like a loose footrest.”
The second race was his last chance for a win. “A good start and a perfect first lap—that’s what it took—and I was able to take the lead,” said Hobelsberger. “I drove the entire race based on my instincts, managed my tires well, and didn’t make a single mistake. I knew what would happen to the tires in the final laps, but I was able to prepare for it. When I saw that I had a 3.4-second lead over Hannes Soomer, I adjusted my lines slightly.”
There are only two riders in the 2023 IDM Superbike series who have scored points in every race—one of them is Hobelsberger. The constant private training sessions, the hours spent on the road bike, swimming, or riding motocross have paid off.
GERT56 and Hobelsberger were a formidable team. It remains to be seen how and where the Bavarian team will proceed from here. For the first time, team manager Karsten Wolf did not reveal the lineup for 2024 until the final, as he had done in previous years.
