The tapes go up on round two of the 2025 FIM Long Track World Championship powered by Anlas, Kineo and HKC Koopmann at Marmande in France this coming Sunday (13 July) where defending and three-time champion Martin Smolinski will attempt to build on his early-season lead.
After racing to victory at the opening round just seven days earlier in Mühldorf, the forty-year-old German star – back-to-back champion in 2023 and 2024 – extended his incredible run to eleven consecutive podium finishes, a record that stretches all the way back to the second round of 2023.
On that sort of form the engine tuner from Munich will be a tough rider to beat, but Long Track is a sport full of tough riders and his rivals – led by compatriot Lukas Fienhage and Britain’s Zach Wajtknecht – are queuing up behind, all looking to take advantage of the slightest weakness in his armour.
At a dramatic opening round in Germany, it was twenty-seven-year-old Wajtknecht who emerged as Smolinski’s closest challenger just ahead of 2020 champion Fienhage and the 2024 bronze and silver medallists will have to continue piling on the pressure in south-west France if they are to disrupt the reigning champion’s consistency.
A relative newcomer to the sport and in his first full season in the championship, Germany’s Daniel Spiller was a career-best fourth last time out and will be aiming to carry this momentum into round two, although at just over five-hundred metres in length – half that of Mühldorf – the Marmande track presents a very different challenge.
The demands of Marmande will certainly not phase Britain’s Chris Harris who currently holds fifth in the title chase. The forty-two-year-old won at Marmande in 2023 on his way to the championship silver medal, however a technical issue put him out of the Grand Final in Mühldorf while he was running in second and he cannot afford another problem on Sunday.
The Dutch pairing of Dave Meijerink and Mika Meijer sit in sixth and seventh following Mühldorf with the top eight completed by twenty-two-year-old Frenchman Mathias Trésarrieu, the nephew of two-time champion Mathieu Trésarrieu, though the talent does not stop there.
Kenneth Kruse Hansen won silver in 2020 and although the Dane failed to finish on the podium last season, he claimed two victories in 2023 and was the only rider to defeat Smolinski at round one when the pair lined up against each other in their first Heat race.
Also looking to climb the leaderboard on Sunday after failing to make an impact at Mühldorf is a trio of veteran riders comprising forty-three-year-old British rider Andrew Appleton, forty-five-year-old German Stephan Katt and forty-one-year-old Finn Tero Aarnio.
Round two of the 2025 FIM Long Track World Championship powered by Anlas, Kineo and HKC Koopmann gets under way this coming Sunday (13 July) at Marmande in France with tapes scheduled to go up on the opening Heat race at 21:15 (local time). STARTING LIST HERE
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