Nearly half the field from the IDM Superbike series made a detour to the FIM World Endurance Championship ahead of the grand finale at Hockenheim from September 20–22, a series in which many of them compete on a more or less regular basis. The new four-time IDM Superbike champion, Ilya Mikhalchik, was hoping for a victory with the BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team at the prestigious Bol d’Or in Le Castellet (FRA). But the 28-year-old Ukrainian experienced all the highs and setbacks that endurance racing has to offer. The race, as well as the 2024 title, was won by the Yoshimura SERT MOTUL team (Gregg Black, Dan Linfoot, Etienne Masson) on Suzuki.
With a perfect qualifying session, the BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team had secured pole position for the 87th edition of the endurance classic. The race, which started at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, also went according to plan until the early hours of Sunday morning. At the fiercely contested front of the field, Ilya Mikhalchik, Markus Reiterberger, and Hannes Soomer consistently held second place and applied pressure on the leaders. Reiterberger even set a new lap record with a time of 1:52.517 minutes. After eleven hours of racing, the #37 BMW M 1000 RR finally took the lead.
The scare came early Sunday morning. In a violent highside crash, Soomer suffered a broken upper arm. He also dislocated his shoulder. But the Estonian gritted his teeth, picked up the bike, and rode it back to the pits despite his injuries. Mikhalchik and Reiterberger continued the race as a duo. As a result of the crash, there was later a problem with the fuel system. The bike had to return to the pits several times for repairs. Time and again, the riders mounted a comeback. In the end, the #37 finished in fifth place and secured third place in the World Championship standings.
After completing 15 stints, Reiterberger could feel every bone in his body. Mikhalchik was absolutely exhausted by the end. And Soomer was very upset: “My crash started with a slight slip of the rear end. I just couldn’t recover from it and ended up with a massive highside. It was an unfortunate accident. Maybe I pushed too hard that night to maintain the lead. I want to apologize to the team and will learn from this. I dislocated my shoulder, fractured my arm, and after that I was out.” Soomer had been filling in for the French regular rider Sylvain Guintoli.
Mikhalchik will therefore head to the IDM finale in Hockenheim this coming weekend as the early-season Superbike champion and third-place finisher in the FIM World Endurance Championship.
Other IDM drivers and results:
Jan Mohr, Milan Merckelbagh (JMA Racing Action Bike, Suzuki, STK, P10)
Luca de Vleeschauwer, Twan Smits (Pitlane Endurance, Yamaha, STK, P18)
Florian Alt, Leandro Mercado (Honda Viltais Racing, EWC – not classified, as they did not cross the finish line due to a technical failure)
Marco Fetz, Bastian Ubl, Daniel Rubin (Motobox Kremer, Yamaha, EWC – Did not finish)
Jan-Ole Jähnig (Tecmas MRP BMW Racing Team, STK – Did not finish)
Bálint Kovács (Hungarian Endurance Racing Team by Moto-Jungle, STK – Did not finish)
