Heinrich, the supposed villain, scores top results at Oschersleben

From 2023 up to and including 2025, Freddie Heinrich competed in the Pro Superstock 1000 Cup as part of the IDM on a 1000cc Kawa. This year, he has taken a step back in terms of engine capacity, but a step up in terms of the Euro Moto Supersport class. Originally, 2026 was only intended to be a transitional year. Kawasaki Germany is planning a return to the 1000cc category with him for 2027, possibly as part of a Bimota project. Now, halfway through the 2026 season, no decisive progress has yet been made in this regard.

Freddie Heinrich, however, has made more progress with the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R in the Euro Moto Supersport class – the only one of its kind on the grid at Oschersleben last weekend. The 21-year-old from Saxony, riding for Team Kawasaki Weber Racing, achieved his best results of the season with 7th and 6th places. Speaking to SPEEDWEEK.com, he initially commented rather dispassionately: “It’s going well.”

On the road to improvement

Of course, he went on to add a few more detailed comments: “We’re on the right track. We’ve done a lot of work on the bike and the lads have done a good job. We’d already made good progress at Most, particularly with the suspension set-up. After that, we tested at Oschersleben. Last weekend, we put all these findings together, which meant we were able to set some pretty good lap times.”

He went on to explain that they’d been tweaking things back and forth a lot and, in some cases, trying things they’d never attempted before. “We’d been having problems with front-wheel chattering for a long time. That’s virtually gone now,” he said. Although the Kawasaki is clearly not the best Supersport bike at the moment and it’s very difficult to close the gap to the very front, he believes they can still move a bit further up the order. “The Yamahas, Ducatis and Hondas are already incredibly strong, especially in terms of engine power and torque. That’s what we’re still lacking a bit. On top of that, as a rider, I’m also lacking experience with the 600cc bike. But we’re all pushing on together to get even better. I hope we can finish in the top five at Assen.”

When asked about this transitional year in the Supersport class, he said: “We’re still having lots of discussions and thinking about what we can do next year. But I must also say that I’ve grown to like the class and am now getting on very well with the 6er. What happens next year, however, is still anyone’s guess. It also depends on how close we can get to the front of the field in this class.”

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Clarification following the Schleiz disqualification

During a paddock chat at Oschersleben, Freddie Heinrich’s disqualification the previous week at an amateur race in Schleiz, where he was riding the 10er Superstock Kawa, was still causing quite a stir. SPEEDWEEK.com gave the rider in question the opportunity to set out his side of the story. He said: “I was really given a hard time about it afterwards. I’d like to make it clear that the claims – both spoken and, in some cases, written – that I shouted at or struck a marshal are simply not true. What I am to blame for is that, after the crash, I rode out of the gravel trap rather aggressively, kicking up stones. It was a silly situation that a marshal happened to be hit in the process. I’m sorry about that too, but I was in race mode and on an adrenaline high. Naturally, I wanted to get away from there as quickly as possible and finish the race somehow.”

He described how the crash happened as follows: “I just cut in on the inside and the other rider closed the gap a bit further. Then neither of us could do anything about it and we both went down. He then came over to me and said himself that it was a racing incident and that everything was fine. I suppose I was disqualified because of the stones I kicked up. But as I said, that was absolutely not my intention and I hadn’t even suspected as much. However, the way I was then criticised in some quarters is, in my opinion, completely unacceptable.”