German riders in the Moto2 World Championship 2016

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German riders in the Moto2 World Championship 2016
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German riders in the Moto2 World Championship 2016

German riders in the Moto2 World Championship 2016
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Three Germans make the Moto2 class the top game of the Road World Championship for fans back home this year. A team has two trump cards in hand.

Friedemann Kirn

04/12/2016

The first race of the new MotoGP World Championship had not yet started when the transfer carousel began to spin. Valentino Rossi will stay with Yamaha for another two years. Bradley Smith will be the works driver of the new KTM team from 2017. Jorge Lorenzo will join Ducati, Maverick Viñales will join Yamaha as his successor. Johann Zarco succeeds his successor at Suzuki. Alex Rins will switch to Repsol-Honda – or to Suzuki, if his Moto2 team boss Sito Pons succeeds in returning to the premier class and can loose factory machines there. There were solid facts, but also countless rumors and half-truths.

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The last category also included Jonas Folger’s upcoming MotoGP entry as a replacement for Bradley Smith. He had already negotiated with the French Tech 3 team a year and a half ago, but for various reasons had not come to a conclusion. Folger is now under contract with the Los Angeles-based management agency Wasserman, whose representative Rhys Edwards has now also made an appearance at Tech3. “I’ve been interested in Jonas for a long time. I would prefer a German to another Spaniard. And he has the talent, ”explains Tech3 team boss Herve Poncharal.

However, the Frenchman also has to inspire Yamaha with his idea. The Japanese want a driver who not only celebrates individual successes, but also competes in the world championship at a consistently high level. Folger has to show consistency, and nobody knows that better than the 22-year-old Bavarian himself, who is already contesting his eighth Grand Prix season, but despite all his talent has never fought for a world title.

“MotoGP? First I have to stay seated on the moped, ”laughs Folger when asked about the ascent. He is alluding to the season opener in Qatar, where he fought at the top in all training sessions, took pole position with a fabulous time, had a lead of one and a half seconds after two laps and slipped over the front wheel on the third. Two weeks later in Argentina he made up for the blunder and took third place after an early lead.

Jonas Folger has often proven in his career that he has the necessary speed for victories. A total of four wins, five pole positions and five fastest race laps made him the ideal candidate for Dynavolt-Intact boss Jurgen Lingg, who wanted to bring “healthy competition” into his one-man team and provide Sandro Cortese with a strong colleague. Lingg, an experienced technician, Stefan Keckeisen, a vehicle battery entrepreneur from Memmingen and Wolfgang Kuhn, a building contractor from Bad Wurzach, founded the racing team after Cortese won the Moto3 title in 2012 to enable him to move up to the Moto2 class.

In terms of advertising value, the commitment for the two main sponsors was an immediate success: Keckeisen was delighted with the steep rise in sales figures for motorcycle batteries, Peter Baumann, head of the Ulm company Liqui Moly, was amazed at the growth rates for lubricants and cleaners. “Both companies can precisely analyze the advertising success and justify the investment,” explains Lingg. “That the sponsorship is worthwhile gives us a feeling of security.” Even doubling the budget for a two-man team was not an insurmountable hurdle. The new project is secured for three years, with Folger signing for two years and agreeing an exit clause in the event of a MotoGP offer.

Cortese’s contract lasts until the end of the year, and what happens then is also performance-related. After he dominated the first year of the Moto3 four-stroke class and celebrated five victories on his way to the world title with his superior KTM factory machine, expectations were high. But in three years of the Moto2 World Championship, Cortese has only captured two podium places, and he has not yet achieved one victory.

Whether Jurgen Lingg’s plan will work out and Cortese’s wings will grow with his strong team-mate Jonas Folger, or whether Cortese will break down on a faster driver in the team, is not yet foreseeable. So far it has been shown that both drivers get along very well with the new Kalex. Particularly important for Jonas Folger is the return from WP to Ohlins spring elements, which went hand in hand with the change from his Spanish AGR team to Dynavolt Intact. “The bike is calmer with Ohlins, it’s not that nervous. I can go to the limit more relaxed and feel more feedback, ”says Folger, explaining the difference. Before the start of the season, Ohlins had the Intact team test no fewer than three completely different fork types. “The biggest problem with the earlier Ohlins forks wasn’t damping or friction. They were just too stiff, ”explains Jurgen Lingg.

But now the motorcycle fits, as does Folger’s environment. The Bavarian is relieved that he can chat with the mechanics, chief technician Patrick Mellauner and team boss Lingg in his mother tongue, because up to now he has only been able to formulate bumpily in English what he naturally crosses his lips in German. He is also amazed at how quickly the experienced Lingg and his crew find a suitable setup. “In a very short time, we put Jonas on a motorcycle that was going in the right direction. We were ready on the second day of the first tests in Valencia. Lingg smiles, who doesn’t believe in major technical experiments at the individual Grand Prix. “The basic vote is done in spring. I am absolutely against undertaking serious interventions at a Grand Prix. What good is it if you improve the motorcycle from one training session to the next, but the driver cannot adapt to it? ”Asks Lingg.

It is also this philosophy that gives followers the feeling of having arrived at home. “I am completely satisfied. I have to feel good before I can get results. In the new team, I can concentrate on driving because I trust everyone. That might make the difference to last year, ”explains Folger.

Not that his team from last year was bad, after all, he celebrated two victories with TV chef Karlos Arguignano’s Spanish AGR racing team. There he cleared the way for Marcel Schrotter. “First Jonas, now Marcel. We always end up with the Germans ”, smiles Arguignano, who also hired the German chief technician Alfred Willeke.

However, Willeke is not responsible for Schrotter, but rather his Spanish team colleague Axel Pons, not least to counteract a German-speaking enclave within the AGR team. Schrotter is looked after by the experienced Spaniard Chus Sánchez. Schrotter gets along brilliantly with Sánchez, in English, which is also due to the fact that the Grand Prix vagabond is used to changing stations in his career. Grown up in Landsberg am Lech and discovered by Toni Mang, Sepp Schlogl and Adi Stadler for GP sport, Schrotter drove for the Indian Mahindra team, for the Italian brand Bimota and a Spanish Kalex team, before joining for 2014 and 2015 the French Côte d’Azur-based Tech3 racing team. With his own construction Mistral, which is difficult to force on a curved line, however, he was never able to show his true talent.

Now, with the Kalex, Schrotter is driving out and is “there from the first lap”, as he reports with satisfaction. With places around the top ten, sometimes even further ahead. “Now I can show what I can do. It’s nice to see that I can always be at the forefront during training. If the Kalex fits and if I can apply pressure, I’ll be eighth, sixth, or suddenly even second, like in one of the free training sessions in Qatar. “

Schrotter cannot yet compete with Folger or Qatar winner Tom Luthi, but sees the potential for improvement that the Kalex offers him with its countless setting options. “We’re still looking for a setup that suits me even more. For example at the entrance to the bend, in the braking zones, how I find the grip when sliding and what the motorcycle does when I let go of the brake. We can still do better. ”There are many problems similar to those with the Mistral, but on a completely different level. “Last year we were 18th or 20th, 1.5 seconds behind. Now we’re eighth or tenth, 0.4 seconds behind, ”explains Schrotter. “The way I see him, he’s a hard worker. I do not doubt its success, ”explains Karlos Arguignano.

So the most exciting question remains how Sandro Cortese will hold its own in the German three-way battle in the Moto2 class. His driving style is precise and elegant, unlike Jonas Folger, he looks for luck less on the brakes than when accelerating out early. While Folger works a lot with his upper body in the corners and thus makes up for his body size, the roughly ten kilo lighter Cortese sits compactly and like a glove on the motorcycle. What pulls him out of the comfort zone while riding is too much nodding when braking and too much straightening of the bike when accelerating. He needs a balanced chassis and, according to Lingg, could get even faster if he braked as hard as Folger and took just as much speed into the curve.

But above all, he needs self-confidence in the new, internal team competition. Having Jonas Folger on the team is both a curse and a blessing. “When Folger drives away from him, he feels pressure. But if he catches up, if he can break free, the trend will turn positive again. There is not only black and white, but many shades of gray in between ”, is the opinion of Kalex boss Alex Baumgartel.

In the first two races, however, the gray tones were more in the darker area. An early start that was subsequently punished with a time penalty threw Cortese back to 15th place at the GP opener in Qatar. And in Argentina, the front wheel slipped away in the battle for ninth place. Jurgen Lingg: “He is bitterly disappointed. But we have to look ahead. “

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