This weekend, the penultimate event on the IDM calendar 2021 took place on the beautiful Red Bull Ring in Styria, Austria. It was the first visit of the International German Motorcycle Championship since 2014 in Spielberg. Thick clouds and inconsistent weather, with the constant change between dry and wet, did not let the riders of the EGS-alpha-Van Zon-BMW team relax this weekend.
With a little more practice time on Friday, Ilya Mikhalchik (UKR), Jan Mohr (AUT), Pepijn Bijsterbosch (NED) and Tim Eby (GER) started the penultimate event of this season. Mikhalchik, for whom the visit to the track was the first time, had a little crash in the rain-soaked qualifying on Saturday and was only able to qualify for fourth place on the grid for the first race. The Ukrainian nonetheless finished both races on the podium, with a third place in race one and a second place in race two.
Jan Mohr, whose long-awaited home race was the event at the Red Bull Ring, got his best race result of the season so far with eighth place in the second race after starting the first race from 14th position and due to the lack of confidence due to the weather finished 18th then on his bike on the slippery racetrack.
For the Dutchman Pepijn Bijsterbosch, the weekend did not go optimally, but it was better than his own home race two weeks ago in Assen in the Netherlands. There he was haunted by bad luck, which he was able to make up for this weekend with places eleven and twelve. It was disappointing for the 31-year-old that he messed up in race one, which cost him important points. In the second race it was the brakes that prevented him from achieving a better position. From a technical point of view, the weekend was still a success, as the BMW M 1000 RR felt much better than at the previous event.
It has definitely paid off for the German Tim Eby that he had a private test on the Austrian track a few weeks ago. He was able to set consistently fast lap times and moved significantly further ahead than in previous events, always close to the points-positions. He is satisfied with his weekend and hopes to be able to take the motivation with him to the last IDM event.
On the last weekend in September, from 24th to 26th the last event of the series at the Hockenheimring will decide who will be German champion 2021. The chances are good for EGS-alpha-Van Zon-BMW rider Ilya Mikhalchik to secure the title for the third time. But it remains to be seen what his title opponents can offer on the racetrack in Hockenheim. All information about the series, the results and the current standings can be found on the website www.idm.de. |