Team Yamaha MGM Celebrates First Superbike*IDM Win at the Lausitzring
. By Bikeland Staff
Team Yamaha MGM's Max Neukirchner brought home the first Superbike*IDM International German Championship win of the 2015 season aboard his new YZF-R1M at the third round at the Lausitzring. Teammate Damian Cudlin consistently improved his pace throughout the weekend and collected valuable points with two solid top-five results.
As this weekend's races formed a part of the Deutsche Tourenwagen-Masters (DTM) schedule, the Lausitzring saw a different layout in comparison to the first round held at the same track when Neukirchner and Cudlin impressed with some strong results.
Clearly liking the German circuit, Neukirchner showed a solid pace on Saturday afternoon. He secured second spot on the grid and looking confident for the first race, which took place only a few hours after the Superpole.
The German got a good start off the line at the beginning of the 21-lap sprint, but dropped back to fourth position after a small mistake on the brakes in the first corner. The 32 year old quickly fought his way back to second place before getting caught up in a hard fight with Markus Reiterberger for the lead. The pair swapped positions numerous times before Neukirchner took over at the front and made it stick at lap ten. With clear track in front of him he put the hammer down and was able to break away from his rival. Unchallenged for the remaining laps he delighted his team with the first race win of the 2015 season with a convincing lead of 6.245 seconds.
Teammate Cudlin had a more challenging weekend. He fell back from fifth to eight position at the start of the first race and lost valuable time as he tried to make up ground. He bravely fought his way back to fifth place and was able to defend this position to the line.
The Australian and his crew spend the Saturday evening fine-tuning settings of his Yamaha YZF-R1M and the work paid off; Cudlin had a much better feeling in the second race and held fifth position after the opening lap. Two laps later he was able to pass Lanzi for the fourth place, but had to give the position back at the end of the race. His two top five results keep him seventh in the overall standings with a 46 points total.
Team Yamaha MGM team will be back in action in two weeks time (June 12 to 14) at the fourth round of the Superbike*IDM staged at the famous Nürburgring.
Max Neukirchner
Race 1 - 1st, Race 2 - 2nd
"We really did a fantastic job, the first win for Yamaha in Germany. I couldn't be happier. Two rivals passed me at the start and I was pushed back to the fourth position. I was able to pass Lanzi pretty quickly and followed Fores until he made a mistake some laps later in the first corner and I got through. From this point I pushed like crazy to catch up with Reiterberger. The gap got smaller, but in the end it didn't really work out. I'm happy anyway; a win, a second place and 45 points this weekend, I think I can really be pleased."
Max Neukirchner
Untitled
Damian Cudlin
Race 1 - 5th, Race 2 - 5th
"It's a good day for our team because Max took the first victory and he did a really great job, so I'm happy for him and the team. Obviously I would like also to be joining him on the podium, but today we weren't quite strong enough. We made a small improvement today. The position was the same, but it was a lot closer this time. At least this time I was able to catch and pass Lanzi at one point and had a good speed. It was really just the last part of the race where I started to suffer from loss of grip and I started to lose a lot of time at the end. Lanzi was a little bit stronger, so he was able to pass me back and I couldn't do anything about it. It wasn't the big improvement I was hoping to make, but it's a step and I think we're going in the right direction. I really hope that we will be able to continue our progress at the next round at the Nürburgring."