For the Euro Moto Sportbike class, Kitzbichler imitated Arnold Schwarzenegger

At the fifth Euro Moto event of 2026 in Assen, Tobias Kitzbichler – last year’s Moto4 Northern Cup rider – celebrated his first victory in the sportbike class with his sixth podium finish of the season, riding a production-based motorbike. At the Nürburgring, the 16-year-old Austrian secured his next podium finish with a second-place finish in Saturday’s race, thereby gaining a slight advantage over the Dutchman Ruben Bijman in the race for the runners-up spot behind the Czech rider Stepan Zuda.

On race Sunday, the rider from Niederndorf (near Kufstein) crashed on the fourth lap shortly after he had tasted the lead. Although he continued the race and, following a safety check in the pits, secured at least three championship points by finishing last behind guest rider Lucy Michel from the Women’s World Championship (WCR), these were far too few. Ruben Bijman won, as he had done the previous day, and thus scored significantly more points. The runners-up title at the finale in Hockenheim is theoretically still possible for Tobias Kitzbichler, but unrealistic.

Race 2 went wrong

“I’m not exactly disappointed, but I could have made more of it,” he told SPEEDWEEK.com afterwards. “A podium finish was definitely within reach again, but you have to be able to cope with things like that. The Nürburgring weekend was a shame, but I’m not at all disappointed with the season as a whole. I’m more than satisfied with my performance so far – it’s more than I’d expected. But I’d also like to highlight the age difference, as my main rivals are five or six years older than me.”

Added to that is the fact that this is the first time he has raced on a bike borrowed from the series. He explains: “The mass that needs to be moved, and above all, braking it down. Naturally, I’ve had to adjust my riding style slightly. And through a lot of training from January to the middle of the year, I’ve built up around three kilograms of pure muscle mass.”

At Hockenheim, he’s hoping to be in contention for victory once again. “I’ve got a comfortable lead at the back of the standings, so I’ve got nothing left to lose. So I’ll be going all out on the attack, just as I always do, really. But to be honest, I haven’t really been thinking much about the standings since Assen. I just want to have fun and ride freely. That’s something I’ve learnt over the past few years – if you think too much, nothing good comes of it.”

Top Austrian

He hadn’t overthought things during his crash at the Nürburgring – if anything, he’d thought too little. “In that situation, my mind had completely switched off. I was just trying to move up the field and pushed a bit too hard. I wanted too much at that moment. At least I now hold the all-time lap record thanks to the fastest race lap (set just before his mishap, ed.).”

In the championship, Tobias Kitzbichler is the best Austrian and also the best German-speaking rider. His compatriots in this class failed to score any points at the Nürburgring. Luis Rammerstorfer sustained bruises to his arm in a crash during Thursday’s practice session – not serious, but very painful – and subsequently decided not to continue.

Jakob Rosenthaler was once again forced off the track – this time as early as the first lap of the first race – and, having sustained a finger injury, set off for home shortly afterwards.