Lukas Tulovic won the second race of the IDM Superbike series at the TT Circuit and has now gone down in the history books as a five-time winner this season. He crossed the finish line in his red Ducati Panigale V4R with a three-and-a-half-second lead over World Championship guest rider Dominique Aegerter (Yamaha) and Leandro “Tati” Mercado (BMW).
A lot happened at the fifth IDM round of the year. Tulovic (Triple M Racing Ducati Frankfurt) took the lead in the overall standings in the first Superbike race and extended it in the second race. In addition, the 25-year-old German defeated Domi Aegerter—a seasoned Superbike World Championship rider currently ranked 12th—who had taken over the Yamaha of injured SWPN regular Jan Mohr for the weekend.
“Anyone who ever finds themselves in the situation of riding a motorcycle like that, flying like that, floating like that—being in another world—I hope everyone gets to experience it; I wish everyone could feel, just once in their life, the way I felt out there in the race right now. I just really enjoyed it. Phenomenal,” Tulo said, clearly overwhelmed. For the Ducati rider, this was perhaps a very important weekend in his career. He makes no secret of his desire to race in the Superbike World Championship next year. He took a big step closer to the IDM Superbike title at Assen, but it’s not over yet. Honda’s star rider, Florian Alt (Holzhauer Racing Promotion), trails by 15 points, but there are still 100 points up for grabs before the end of the season.
Tulo pulled away from the pack right after the start and had a different tire on his rim than Aegerter, which seemed to be the better choice at the start. The Swiss rider, with the large white cross on his helmet and the bright yellow “77” on his motorcycle, was joined by Toni Finsterbusch (GERT56 by RS Speedbikes). Flo Alt had a completely botched start, fought his way through the field, and managed to limit the damage. He came back from the first lap in seventh place. Mercado (Masteroil Alpha Van Zon-BMW) was in top form. After going off into the grass in the first race, he was determined to make up for it and had now worked his way up to second place.
Lorenzo Zanetti and Max Schmidt were knocked out of the race. All the jostling helped Tulo pull further away from the pack with each lap. Even Aegerter had to back off. He had his hands full with Mercado throughout the race. In a fierce move, he squeezed past the Argentine on the fourth lap.
Alt quickly overtook Jan-Ole Jähnig. Things got tougher with Toni Finsterbusch. Both are extremely strong on the brakes, but Alt had the better line, spotted the opening, and ultimately snatched P4. Every single point is crucial for him in the title race, but he couldn’t move up any further from there. The gap to Mercado was too big. Mercado’s crew was jumping up and down along the pit wall, hoping that the BMW rider might still be able to do something against Aegerter. While that wasn’t going to happen, the Swiss rider actually had to work really hard to defend his second-place finish.
At the end, he said, “The guys in the IDM are fast; it was really fun racing against them. For me, the weekend was good practice for my next World Championship race in early September at Magny-Cours.”
IDM Superbike, Race 2
1. Lukas TULOVIC (GER), Ducati
2. Dominique AEGERTER (SUI), Yamaha
3. Leandro MERCADO (ARG), BMW
4. Florian ALT (GER), Honda
5. Toni FINSTERBUSCH (GER), BMW
6. Jan-Ole JÄHNIG (GER), BMW
7. Hannes SOOMER (EST), BMW
8. Twan SMITS (NLD), Yamaha
9. Bálint KOVÁCS (HUN), BMW
10.Kevin ORGIS (DEU), BMW
11.Milan MERCKELBAGH (NLD), BMW
12. Leon ORGIS (GER), BMW
13. Soma GÖRBE (HUN), BMW
14. Maximilian KOFLER (AUT), Yamaha
15. Sandro WAGNER (GER), BMW