Hot first day at the FIM-E NitrOlympX with more to come tomorrow

Friday at the NitrOlympX, Hockenheimring, Germany is always a question of easing into the event on the annual visit to the woefully underused Rico Anthes Quartermile. The first qualifying session was something that can largely be overlooked, with a lot of track hiccups, oildowns and delays although the second session was a slight improvement, but the track itself really was baking under the sun. Unfortunately, tomorrow (Saturday) looks to be even hotter, but it is what it is and there is a fair amount at stake in qualifying ahead of Sunday’s eliminations.

FIM-E Top Fuel Bike is currently led by championship leader Rikard Gustafsson with a second session 6.262/230.53, ahead of Eric Richard (6.638/216.93 – some nice mile per hour from the French Funny Bike), Kari Rautanen (6.772/209.17 – not bad for the Finn’s first trip to Hockenheim) and Mike Olie at a slowing 6.975 to round out the top four (of eight) and the only six second runners today.

Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but Marcus Christiansen ends day one with a substantial lead over the rest of the FIM-E Super Twin Bike field with a 6.418/218.12.

Only Roman Sixta (7.035) and Chris van Nimmen (7.539) are in the sevens and the rest of the field could do with putting in some representative numbers tomorrow (only five of the nine actually have times recorded so far).

More on the plus side (and not just through weight of numbers) is the FIM-E Super Street Bike field which is already the quickest sixteen bike field with a current bump of 7.519 (and nine riders currently outside that figure so plenty of scope for improvement there).

At the sharp end, four are in the sixes (again room for improvement tomorrow in the remaining two sessions), with Jake Mechaell on top with a second session 6.810/217, followed by current points leader and last year’s NitrOlympX event winner Alan Morrison Jnr (6.856), Krisztian Jasz (6.917) and Savvas Tilsizoglou (also 6.917).

FIM-E Pro Stock Bike points leader Jorg Lymant leads the seven currently qualified with a 7.182. The German decided to sit out the second session over some concerns about ‘stuff in the oil’ but Lymant was happy with the best number on his second Buell engine. Bertrand Maurice (7.241) and Dimitrios Petridis (7.277) are keeping pace.

Jaxon King heads the six entries in the FIM-E Junior Drag Bike Cup with what could prove to be a difficult to dislodge +0.040 on his 13.31 dial-in, although Brad Morrison (+0.056) and Richard Willcox (+0.096) are merely a blink behind.

Round by round results are available here: https://www.tw-sportsoft.de/NitrolympX_2024_577079/TW_ON_Virtueller_Aushang.php

Livestream is available here: https://www.nitrolympx.de/livestream/

Words and photos Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes