Nico Koch (KTM): Not enough reward for his strong performance

At the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle in Stuttgart, which was virtually sold out on both evenings – with a total of 16,950 fans in attendance – the German supercross riders were the icing on the cake this time, and not just because of their origins or their status as local heroes. Rather, the three current top riders in their field thrilled the fans with strong performances on a par with the French and Americans who have long dominated German Supercross venues.

In the SX1 class, Nico Koch, Mark Scheu and, at short notice as a substitute, Stefan Ekerold represented the black, red and gold colours. As expected, Nico Koch was the most promising of the three. When he went on to win his practice group on both Friday and Saturday and advanced to the day’s final without any detours, but in commanding style (on Friday with a win in his qualifying race, and second the following day), it wasn’t just the fans who were hoping for a German podium finish in the top class.

Unfortunately, these hopes were not fulfilled. On Friday, he crashed in the early stages of the decisive heat, and in a repeat of events, he committed the same blunder again on Saturday evening. Speaking to SPEEDWEEK.com afterwards, he said: “I think on Friday I was a bit over-eager at that moment. On Saturday I wanted to do better and take it a bit easier. But then I was too cautious. I’d seen earlier in the SX2 final that my team-mate Noah Ludwig had been taken out in that corner. That was probably still on my mind a bit. That corner was just asking for someone to be taken out. I left the door open a bit too wide because it was difficult to judge how much I needed to close it.”

Nevertheless, Koch was able to leave the ‘Ländle’ with his head held high – which is exactly what he did and how he saw it. Not least because of his two comebacks to finish 10th and 7th. In those races, he once again demonstrated his strong pace following his crashes. On Friday, for example, he set the fourth-fastest lap of the race. “For me, it was still, and without a doubt, a successful weekend. Of course, it was a shame that I crashed right at the start of both finals. But I’m also very, very happy with the weekend because I was right up there at the front in almost every session and had good pace. That was brilliant. There was also great consistency. I actually made very few mistakes, and those were, of all things, in both finals.”

Nico Koch: Why he was able to improve his performance

He explained his further improvement on last year’s performance as follows: “I trained a lot last year and was also able to take part in a few more races outside Germany. The move to the KTM Sarholz Racing Team was also the right decision and has helped me. It’s just that a number of small factors came together, which ultimately mean you can really compete for the top places.”

Unlike last winter, when the Braunschweig native was signed up for the Indian Supercross series and also competed in a few races in the AMA Supercross Championship, his current winter programme, following Assen last week and now Stuttgart, is limited to the SX Cup final in mid-January in Dortmund, as well as the invitational races in Goes, the Netherlands, and Herning, Denmark, in February. It’s a shame for him that the World Supercross Championship has since been cancelled. At the season opener in Canada in August, the 27-year-old finished twelfth out of 16 riders in the SX2 class.