Mansfield brothers Ben and Tom Birchall have won the FIM Sidecar World Championships for a second successive year.

The Mitchells of Mansfield-backed Birchall Racing team won in Oschersleben, Germany, having entered the final round of the season one point behind Tim Reeves and Mark Wilkes.

They made a great start from the front of the grid and entered the first series of corners in the lead.

Using his skill and experience, Ben steered the Yamaha-powered machine flawlessly all the way to the chequered flag and was never headed by the chasing outfits.

It was the brothers third world title and they became the first team to win both back-to-back world and TT titles in the same two years.

Ben said: “I can’t believe this has happened. We had a great year — the TT was incredible but a run of bad luck had put us a long way behind in the world championship chase.

“Everyone told me to never give up, and so we fought hard every single mile right to that final flag in Germany.

“Tim suffered some bad luck in those final two rounds, but that only matched what we had to go through at the beginning of the season.”

PHOTO: Mark Walters