Lena Siebert (16) new co-driver of Manuel Meier / Grassbahn Sidecar European Championship

One of Germany’s best track teams, Manuel (33) and Melanie Meier (40) from MSC Berghaupten, will not be driving together on grass and sand, at least this year. The brothers from MSC Berghaupten crashed the team of Markus Venus and co-driver Markus Eibl at the Easter meeting in Pocking when their bike’s chain broke and the rear wheel jammed.

Melanie Meier had to be flown to the hospital by rescue helicopter, where her dislocated hip was repositioned under general anesthesia.

“Manuel has already put most of this behind him, he is now getting better every day and can return to normal everyday life,” the team posted on social media. And more: “Melanie has been home since Thursday and is on the mend. However, the first predictions about when she will be 100 percent well unfortunately are not very good because it takes time for everything to heal. But really that is not good at all for the current season, which has not yet started.

Driving a trailer without passengers? That’s not how it works. Skip the season and not drive at all? Not that big either. Driving, but with whom? The Meier Racing team found a solution that was quite obvious.

Shortly before Pocking’s accident, Manuel and Melanie Meier were training in Haunstetten. In the middle, Bavaria did not travel with her sister, but with Lena Siebert from Melsungen. Siebert, there was something there, do you know the name right?

That’s right, Lena Siebert is the daughter of Mario, formerly known as “Locke”, Siebert. In the early 1990s, Melsunger drove as co-driver with Brit Dave Howells and then with Oswald Bischoff. The Bischoff/Siebert team was third in the European grassroots championships in Melsungen in 1996 and second in 2001. Siebert is now a board member at MSC Melsungen, sports director of the masters B team and part of the long track specialist group at DMSB.

“Lena grew up on the racetrack,” says Mario Siebert about his daughter Lena, “when she was eight years old, she rode in the team of Manuel and Melanie Meier at the driver’s show in Leipzig. And when he was recently allowed to take part in Manuel’s test in Haunstetten as a co-driver, everyone was surprised by the talent he clearly has.

Before the Haunstetten test, 16-year-old Lena Siebert had already raced in a sidecar in the garage at home with her father Mario as a teacher. Melanie Meier then gave more useful instructions and tips on how to “fit in” on the sidecar at the site in Haunstetten.

When it started, it became clear that Lena had too much talent for the dangerous work on the vibrating metal on the sidecar of the 500cc team. The most important thing, explained father Mario: “Lena is not afraid. After Manuel turned the gas pipe well, he asked when the real action will come.

For the 2025 season, the Meier Racing Team had already considered that Lena Siebert would take over as Melanie’s co-driver. Circumstances make it necessary for this to happen now. The next test for the new Meier/Siebert combination will take place on April 13th in Herxheim, where they will try to get Lena used to speed on the 1000m tracks.