Two EURO MOTO Superbike riders already showed their stuff last weekend. Not in the EURO MOTO, mind you, but in the season opener of the World Endurance Championship. The BMW factory team, with Markus Reiterberger on board, didn’t quite achieve the results they’d hoped for at Le Mans. Newcomer Marcel Schrötter, however, came very close to a podium finish with the ERC Endurance team.
The factory team started the 24-hour marathon from second on the grid, secured the bonus points for the lead after eight and 16 hours, and was aiming for the win. However, the trio of Markus Reiterberger (GER), Michael van der Mark (NED), and Steven Odendaal (RSA) was also involved in a crash and experienced technical issues. They finished the race nonetheless. Although things didn’t go as planned, the BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team still managed to get off lightly and left Le Mans in sixth place in the World Championship standings.
The 33-year-old Marcel Schrötter made a spectacular debut. Riding for Team ERC Endurance, based in Karlsruhe, Schrötter was by far the fastest of the trio, which also included David Checa and Frenchman Kenny Foray. Schrötter laid the groundwork for the team’s ninth-place starting position in the 24-hour race. In the end, they even managed to finish in fourth place.
“I’m happy to have come through my first 24-hour race in good shape,” he says, exhausted, excited, and happy all at once. “Just crossing the finish line after such a long distance is an achievement in itself, and as fourth-place finishers, we were also the best privateer team and the best BMW team. The past week has been an incredible experience for me. Physically, I handled the 24 hours pretty well, aside from the fact that my back was very tense after three or four hours. A muscle in my lower back had completely cramped up. I’ve been aware of this problem for some time, and when that muscle stops cooperating, it becomes all the more exhausting. I had to drive with enormous effort. That wasn’t ideal.”
In his view, Schrötter really stood out during qualifying. “In my ‘Blue’ group, I was fourth in the combined timesheets. All the top teams have qualifying tires. We, on the other hand, do not. In an endurance race, qualifying is the only session where the driver can really give it their all.”
He’ll have another chance to prove himself from May 8 to 10, 2026. That’s when the EURO MOTO season kicks off at the Sachsenring.
