Marcel Schrötter and the Intact team go their separate ways after six years – Schrötter hints at his future – Jürgen Lingg talks about the team’s future
The collaboration between Marcel Schrötter and the Intact team in the Moto2 World Championship is in its sixth year. This sixth year, however, will remain their last together. As both sides officially confirmed on Saturday on the sidelines of the ongoing Misano weekend of the 2022 World Motorcycle Championship, they will go their separate ways in the future.
“It wasn’t just my decision,” Schrötter tells ‘ServusTV’ and already hints at what his own future could look like: “We’ve mentioned the Superbike [World Championship] a few times over the last few months. If a good opportunity could arise there, then that could be interesting for my future.”
“That’s why the decision could have gone either way. And it would have been difficult either way. It doesn’t matter from which side it happens,” says Schrötter, highlighting how close he is to the Intact team, “You don’t ride for a team here for one or two years, take off and move on. It’s already very familiar and grown together. There is also a friendship between everyone. “
New beginning for both sides
That’s exactly how Intact team boss Jürgen Lingg sees it: “Six years is a very long time in this championship. We have experienced many nice things together, had many nice successes: pole positions, podiums. And, of course, the human side was really good between us. We really grew together and were like a little family. Then, of course, something like this is all the more difficult.”
“But,” Lingg told ‘ServusTV’, “after such a long time, you just have to say: OK, now we’ll make a cut, now we’ll make a new start. Tough, but you just have to do it. That’s the business.” And when asked how things could continue with Schrötter, he says: “I just hope that he finds what he wants for his future and that he gets a new challenge.
“The same applies to us, of course. We will also have to reposition ourselves and simply try something new,” said the Intact team boss, who at this point in time cannot reveal who will be competing for his team in 2023.
“That’s not quite through everything yet, but you’ll find out very soon,” assures Lingg, and when asked whether the German team will have a German rider on the bike again in the 2023 Moto2 season, he replies, “You can always have hope. That’s how all life is.”
In Schrötter and Intact’s sixth year of collaboration in the Moto2 World Championship, they have scored three poles and five podiums together so far. Best result: second place in Austin in 2019. In the current 2022 season, the first win seemed within reach at Assen at the end of June, but then Schrötter crashed while leading.
Before Schrötter joined the Intact team for the 2017 season, he had already ridden four seasons in the Moto2 World Championship for the SAG, Tech 3 and AGR teams. However, he celebrated his greatest successes with the Intact team, for which Sandro Cortese and Tom Lüthi, among others, competed in the Moto2 World Championship in the past. Schrötter ranks eighth in the current 2022 Moto2 overall standings.
