After having participated in 24 races of the Supersport World Championship, the Austrian from St. Marienkirchen, Thomas Gradinger, has a pole position and a podium in this category under his belt, but the delicate situation of Kiefer Racing complicates his 2020 season somewhat.
He raced the ADAC Junior Cup from 2009 to 2011, finishing second in his third season. He subsequently moved to CEV Moto2, then in 24 Supersport World Championship races, Gradinger was able to climb into the top 17 10 times. In 2019, the 23-year-old took his first place on the podium as only third at Assen behind the two teammates Federico Caricasulo et Randy Krummenacher, future World Champion.
After a year spent with the Indian team Nerds Racing (7th in the World Championship) and last season with Vesa Kallio (9th place in the world), Gradinger signed for 2020 with the Kiefer Yamaha team from the Moto2 World Championship, where he became a teammate of Lukas Tulovic.
But so far, Kiefer Racing failed to raise the budget for the season, 300 euros are missing.
How did Gradinger's manager, Andi Ledermann, take the situation when team boss Jochen Kiefer told him about the problems? “ At first it was a big shock, of course. Tom and I had a meeting with Yamaha Austria, who had promised us their support. I then received a call from Jochen who told me that around 300 euros were missing from the budget. »
Kiefer talks about a budget of a good million euros. Is this figure too high for the World Supersport Championship? For Ledermann, “I would have preferred to say that maybe this could be done with 800 euros – the NRT had a similar budget at the time. But I'm too far from Kiefer to know the internal numbers. I don't know how much he pays his people. It already has a calculation basis based on last year's Moto000 season. »
Is there a plan B? “ First, I talked to Tom. Then we decided to go all out with Kiefer. It is currently the start of the fan fundraising campaign. On the other hand, I would be a bad manager if I didn't look for a plan B. Of course, I've already spoken with other teams. It would be enough to discuss the exact conditions. We are talking with the Yamaha teams, we want to continue working with Yamaha. »
Kiefer only has a good week left to raise the missing money. Do we have to wait that long with plan B? “ Yes. We have a valid contract with Jochen and we still hope to fulfill it. It's nice of Jochen to be serious and not do something like this before it's safe. But in this sport, you have to be courageous. Often a team boss says he will do it anyway, even if he is still missing 100 euros before the season. Other teams do this too. »
Photos © Kallio Racing
source: Speedweek. com
