One year after its launch, the suspension service for “Wilbers by ZF Performance Suspension” products within the IDM is being discontinued. Instead, based on the experience gained last season, the Wilbers team is working on bringing back its own team.
One big name was missing from this season’s Superbike entry list in the International German Motorcycle Championship (IDM). The Wilbers Racing Team had withdrawn from the series after twelve years. Christian Kellner, Jörg Teuchert, Gareth Jones, Lucy Glöckner, Matej Smrz, Bastien Mackels, and most recently Florian Alt had all raced for the team up to that point.
In 2023, however, the IDM team remained on board as the official suspension service partner for the IDM and supported the Kawasaki Weber Motos Racing Team with Leandro Mercado. “The goal for the season was very clear: to get ‘Tati’ Mercado on the podium—and to do so with the supposedly slow Kawasaki ZX-10RR,” says Chief Technician Burkhard Stember, who immediately adds: “After this season, we maintain that the Kawasaki is greatly underestimated. The results in qualifying and in some races prove that. More time, testing, and development work would certainly have led to even more good results.”
Mercado made it onto the podium at the Schleizer Dreieck, finishing second in the second race at Germany’s unique natural race track. The Bonovo Action Team from the Superbike World Championship also relied on Wilbers technology during their guest appearance at the IDM at the Red Bull Ring. The result: American Garrett Gerloff and his French teammate Loris Baz were the first to cross the finish line after 13 laps.
As early as the end of the season, there had been talk of a comeback for the Wilbers team on the track in partnership with Kawasaki. However, Wilbers and the motorcycle manufacturer were unable to reach an agreement on the budget, and the plan was scrapped. The suspension manufacturer, based in Nordhorn, Lower Saxony, is now looking for a new partner.