The Pirelli German Round welcomed back local hero Markus Reiterberger to racing after serious injuries sustained in Misano in June sat him on the bench for the last Round at Laguna Seca and most of the summer.

The Althea BMW rider was excited ahead of his return to racing, his homecoming being at home in Germany. He started out the weekend confidently awaiting his return and with home crowds giving him an extra boost. Saturday morning saw him suffer a highside similar to his crash in Misano. Race 1 then saw the German retire early with technical problems, a less than attractive start to his first weekend back. “It was nice to be back on track on Friday we had a good day and yesterday unfortunately I had a big crash in the morning, I made a big highside and landed on my back so I had a lot of pain on the weekend. Yesterdays first race was not so bad on the dry but I had technical problems so I had to end the race early,” said Reiterberger.

Looking to score some valuable points on day two was tricky as the rains came delaying the race start by almost an hour. The wet track conditions made for an interesting race with nearly half of the field falling off, Reiterberger one of those riders. “Today we had rain and this is very difficult at Lausitzring so I just tried to finish the race to get some points because I knew a lot of people would fall and I didn’t want to risk anything because I’m already injured but then I crashed. I didn’t understand because I didn’t push hard… It was really crazy today.”

The disappointed BMW rider stayed positive though, dusting off the weekend and looking ahead to the next round of the FIM MOTUL World Superbike Championship at Magny-Cours.