Lukas Tulovic: Thanks to a tip from Florian Alt, the one-two finish was a success

Pole position with a new track record, a one-two finish on Sunday and a 47.5-point lead over his nearest rival in the Euro Moto Superbike championship. Defending champion Lukas Tulovic of Team Triple M Ducati Frankfurt treated himself to this haul on his V4R last weekend at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben. The track record wouldn’t strictly have been necessary, as the Ducati rider already held it anyway.

On Friday, during the fourth of seven race weekends, Honda rider Florian Alt – who had clocked up plenty of test kilometres at Oschersleben beforehand – had set the pace, but was already realistic about his rival’s prospects. “Somehow, Tulo always manages to find another second between Friday and Saturday,” said Alt, reflecting on recent Euro Moto history, “and the rest of us just can’t.” Alt was to be proved right. On Saturday, Tulovic secured his third pole position of the season. Only in Brno, when he was at loggerheads with his Ducati’s rear shock absorber in particular, did BMW rider Marcel Schrötter spoil his otherwise spotless record.

Crash debacle narrowly avoided

In the first race, Tulovic – like his fellow riders – was out of the running after less than half the distance. Early on in the race, he’d managed to overtake the lightning-fast starter Twan Smits, which, in hindsight, turned out to be a stroke of personal luck. For whilst Alt, Markus Reiterberger, Kevin Orgis and Toni Finsterbusch all crashed in the Hasseröder section following Smits’ engine blow-up on his Yamaha – with some of their bikes being destroyed right down to the frame – Tulovic rode calmly, as far as was possible at that pace, towards his next victory. After the race was stopped by the red flag, it was not restarted, and the few riders who crossed the finish line were awarded half the points.

At the podium ceremony, however, his thoughts were first and foremost with his colleagues who’d been involved in the crash. “The points are secondary,” he said, “I hope that all the riders are doing well, given the circumstances; that’s the most important thing.” A short while later, confirmation came that none of those involved in the crash had suffered serious injuries. “I didn’t really notice much of what was going on. I just saw the red flag at some point. It’s absolutely awful what happened. From a sporting point of view, too, I hope that everyone will be fit enough to line up for the second race.”

No antidote found

Apart from Smits, all the riders were indeed back on the grid for Race 2. But even then, they had no answer to Tulovic’s dominance. Although Markus Reiterberger managed to keep the gap to the eventual winner, Tulovic, reasonably manageable, catching up with him, let alone overtaking him, was out of the question. “Huge praise also goes to my team, who worked through the entire lunch break,” he said at the podium ceremony, thanking his rival Florian Alt in particular. Although Alt and his team certainly had their hands full with a wrecked Honda, he had still provided the crucial tip. “He’d told me after Race 1 that there was a bit of smoke coming from my Ducati. So my mechanics fitted a used engine from the first races over lunch. Then we were back in the clear. My team did a fantastic job over the weekend, so that I could focus on my job on the track. I’m very pleased.”