Nürburgring: BMW driver Leon Orgis ignored warnings from his front tyre

Behind the major Superbike teams of Euro Moto, the ORM Racing Team / ADAC Sachsen e.V. – which is still relatively new to this class – put in a solid performance for brothers Kevin and Leon Orgis. At the Nürburgring, Leon started both races from 5th on the grid and Kevin from 7th, surrounded by big names. In the first race, Leon, who was running in fifth place on the fifth lap, lost control of the front wheel and crashed out. Kevin finished sixth.

In the second race, Leon Orgis fared much better and held sixth place for several laps, but ultimately had to concede to Florian Alt. He ceded his seventh-place finish to his brother, who is better placed in the championship.

Small gifts stay in the family

SPEEDWEEK.com asked the 25-year-old from Saxony about this. “Despite not having the best start, I managed to settle into the race well and then played it safe to see it out. When Florian Alt passed me, I saw on my pit board that Kevin was two and a half seconds behind me. I then turned round to see if Kevin was on his own or if anyone else was still on his tail. As he was on his own, I decided to let him past and give him an extra point, because his championship position is even tighter than mine.”

Commenting on the self-imposed team orders, he added: “As a team, we want to be as far up the field as possible. In terms of points, it didn’t matter anyway. If we have the chance to do it, we’d be daft not to. I thought to myself, I’ll make the sacrifice for the team and won’t attack Flo again. For me (12th in the standings, editor’s note), one point more or less doesn’t make much difference.”

Trying too hard in the battle for a trophy

He explained his crash in the first race whilst in a promising position as follows: “Our practice and qualifying times were really extremely good. We knew we could manage 1:24 lap times in the races, but the four riders ahead of us saw things differently and were able to match their 1:23 qualifying times in the race as well. At the start, I was still keeping up with the pace of the riders in front of me – that’s when my ambition got the better of me. My front wheel had already slipped out three times before that, which I’d managed to recover from. The fourth time, over a bump, it was just a bit too much. I’d been trying to close the gap to Reiti. Still, it was great to be right up there with the leading group for the first time.”

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After the three warnings from the early-warning system following the front-wheel slips, easing off wasn’t an option for him. “In hindsight, you could say that. But once you’re up there at the front, you naturally want to be in the mix. Our aim, after all, is to win a trophy somewhere this year. So for me, it was all or nothing, especially as there isn’t much left for me to gain in the championship. So for me, it was about giving it my all and aiming for the podium. Something could also have happened with the lads in front of me. So I wanted to stay within striking distance. It would have been nice if we’d managed to make it onto the podium at the Nürburgring; now we’ve still got two chances left at Hockenheim.”