2023 FIM Endurance World Champion
MARV ATTACKS!
The longest serving member of the Yamaha Austria Racing Team (YART) trio that clinched this year’s FIM Endurance Team World Championship (ETWC), Germany’s Marvin Fritz always looked destined to race motorcycles.
The son of a racer, Fritz started out competing in Motocross on a 50cc machine before moving across to Road Racing before he had even celebrated his tenth birthday and his talent immediately shone through with his first national title coming the following year.
More national titles followed in Supersport and Superstock racing, and he then dominated the 2016 German IDM Superbike series before joining YART for the 2016/17 ETWC season.
The thirty-year-old has impressed in several wild card rides in the FIM Superbike World Championship, although his major achievements have all come in the ETWC where in 2018/19 he stood on top of the podium alongside Broc Parkes and Niccolò Canepa at the 8 Hours Slovakia Ring and also claimed top-three finishes at the Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours and the Bol d’Or.
There was more success the following season when, with Karel Hanika replacing Parkes, YART took victory at the 8 Hours of Sepang and 12 Hours of Estoril on their way to second in the 2019/20 championship.
Winning the coveted ETWC this season with Canepa and Hanika called for Fritz to show the resilience of a true champion. After setting the pace at the halfway stage following a second-placed finish at the 24 Heures Motos at Le Mans’ Circuit Bugatti followed by victory at 24H Spa EWC Motos in Belgium, technical problems for YART in Japan at the Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours saw them lose the lead when they finished in fourteenth.
Digging deep when the series signed off at the Bol d’Or, a fighting fourth following another twenty-four hours of close, competitive racing was good enough for him to finally become a well-deserved FIM Endurance World Champion.
PALMARES
FIM Endurance World Champion: 2023