A title-winning campaign of ups and downs: GP champion Tim Georgi in profile

• ADAC Sports Foundation protégé back in peak form
• Nine years of racing experience
• At the computer keyboard, in the gym and on the racetrack

Assen: A lead of 17 points going into the last two races of the campaign is a decent cushion, but it does not provide a decisive advantage when there are still 50 championship points up for grabs. Tim Georgi (17, GER) certainly wasn’t prepared to sit back at Assen in the Netherlands, and despite the most difficult conditions in the first race, he went flat out for the third-place finish that would have been enough for him to clinch the GP class title in the ADAC Northern Europe Cup with one race to spare. But a fall in the wet put paid to hopes of that.

In the second race, the rider from Berlin was determined to avoid taking risks. “I didn’t want get involved in any scraps out there or attempt to set the fastest race lap,” he explained. “All I wanted to do was take the title.” Eventually, the 17-year-old got through the twelve laps without incident and finished in second placed behind his Freudenberg Racing team-mate Walid Khan Soppe (17, NED) to bank the requisite number of points.

“Three titles in four years is a good record,” he says, but then adds a note of self-criticism: “This year, especially in the last few races, I’ve made life really difficult for myself again. Certainly, the conditions were right for me going into the campaign, but I made too many mistakes, even at the end of the season. In the end, though, it all worked out fine, and I would like to thank my team, family, friends and supporters for always giving me their backing.”

A season of varied fortune

After failing to finish the first race of 2017, Georgi embarked on a run of victories in the GP class of the ADAC Northern Europe Cup. He won both races contested in the framework of German Speedweek at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben and then took 25 points in both races at Donington Park. The ADAC Sports Foundation protégé broke his ankle in testing at the Sachsenring but subsequently battled though bravely in the race itself.

“The race at the Sachsenring was definitely my best and at the same time my most difficult of this season,” he explains. “Firstly, I was obliged to start from last place because of competing in the Moto3 World Championship, and secondly, I had to contend with the pain in my foot, yet I still managed to win the race by a margin of ten seconds. That’s quite an achievement!” Georgi was not able to be part of the line-up at Brno, as he had once again been given a wild card for the Grand Prix.

Georgi wanted to put in a bravura performance at Silverstone and wrap up the title on the penultimate weekend of the season. However, he suffered a stroke of bad luck on the warm-up lap for the first race, which meant that he came away empty-handed. But a P2 finish in the second race was enough for him to go into the grand finale at Assen – held as part of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship – 17 points ahead of his nearest pursuer.

First riding experience at the age of four

Georgi can look back on a long career culminating in his 2017 title win: “I first got on a motorcycle when I was four years old. I rode around the inside of a car park on a pocket bike. Four years later, I competed in the Berlin Pocket Bike Championship and also did a bit of Supermoto in parallel.”

At the age of ten, Georgi entered the ADAC Mini Bike Cup, in which he initially had problems with his starts. Over the next three years, he gradually got better and better. He then graduated to the ADAC Junior Cup powered by KTM, which he won at the first attempt. “From this point in 2014 onwards, things just got better and better. I won one IDM title, gained experience in the Spanish championship and won several ADAC NEC races.”

A new chapter of life

Away from the race circuit, Georgi is kept very busy. After successfully completing his school-leaving examinations, the 17-year-old embarked on a traineeship as a commercial clerk in September of this year: “The people there are very nice: I work a lot on the computer, processing orders for goods and various other things. The training is really fun.”

After work, Georgi spends most of his free time in the gym: “Especially in the last few weeks, it feels like I’ve taken up permanent residence in the gym, because I’ve been training there almost every day. I have now drawn up my own training plan, because I now know very well what I need when I’m on my bike.” Georgi aspires to one day compete in MotoGP: “That’s obviously my big dream, but I am also aware that it won’t be easy turning it into reality.”

The immediate future of this talented teenager is up in the air at the moment: “First of all, I will be competing in the last two races of this year’s Junior World Championship thanks to the sponsorship of Dorna here at the ADAC Northern Europe Cup, and then we’ll see what happens next.”