Manthey-Racing wins the fifth round

The excited winners of the 50th ADAC Reinoldus Langstreckenrennen are Marc Lieb (Ludwigsburg/ Germany) and Arno Klasen (Karlshausen/ Germany). The Manthey team took the chequered flag in the Porsche 911 GT3 R into first position at the end of 25 race laps. Frank Stipler’s joy (Bad Münstereifel/ Germany) in contrast was more reserved. The Audi R8 LMS of Phoenix-Racing was missing at the winner’s podium. In lap 27 – just a few minutes before the 4 hours race time had elapsed – his team mate Hans-Joachim Stuck had an accident at the section Aremberg just when it started raining. The race driver who lives in Austria suffered a concussion but fortunately no other injuries. Stuck was nevertheless brought to the Hospital St. Elisabeth for a medical check. Race Control stopped the race with the red flag and the classification was established on basis of the standing after 25 race laps. As more than 60% of the race distance had been covered, full points were awarded for this fifth round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring. Into third position finished Christian Mamerow (Castrop-Rauxel/ Germany) and Alexander Roloff (Berlin/ Germany) in the Porsche 911 GT3 R of Mamerow-Racing. A 30 minutes summary of the race will be broadcasted in Sport 1 on 10th July at 11:45hrs.

A big fight between the Manthey-Porsche and the Pheonix-Audi began right after the start. Mamerow was not able to follow the pace of the two leaders. In the second half of the race, the Mamerow-Porsche had a close battle about place three with the Porsche of the Haribo Team-Manthey driven by Lance David Arnold (Duisburg/ Germany) and Richard Westbrook (Great Britain). “We have done our utmost till the finish line”, informed Mamerow. “And we were finally rewarded with place three which was the maximum we could achieve today.” At the 50th Reinoldus Langstreckenrennen, Lieb celebrated his tenth overall victory in this most popular endurance racing championship in Europe and for Klasen this was his 23rd triumph. The ambitious private driver is thus shown into fifth place in the statistics of overall wins (since 1983). “Last race was the first time for me to drive the Porsche 911 GT3 R and I already scored my first win with this race car today”, said the happy Klassen after the race. “Marc is simply brilliant in the Porsche but my lap times today were super, too. The GT3 is easier to drive than the RSR of the last years. I am now looking forward to the remaining races of the season.”

Arnold/ Westbrook were finally classified in fourth place. Into positions five and six followed Mike Stursberg (Wermelskirchen/ Germany) and Oliver Kainz (Kottenheim/ Germany) in the second Haribo-Porsche and Rudi Adams (Ahüte/ Germany), Stefan Aust (Castrop-Rauxel/ Germany) and Peter Posavac (Essen/ Germany) in the BMW Z4 GT3 entered by Dörr-Motorsport. The top 10 were completed by Sabine Schmitz and Klaus Abbelen (both from Barweiler/ Germany) in a Porsche 911 GT3 R, Dirk Riebensahm, Christian Kohlhaas (both from Andernach/ Germany) and Christopher Brueck (Cologne) in the Dodge Viper GT3 of the Vulkan-Racing-Team Mintgen Motorsport as well as Georg Weiss (Monschau/ Germany), Michael Jacobs (Roetgen/ Germany) and Peter-Paul Pietsch (Leonberg/ Germany) in another Porsche 911 GT3 R of the Wochenspiegel Team Manthey.

Deegener/Wolfahrt/Breuer half-time champions
This fifth round of ten represented the turning point in the fight for the championship lead. With their fourth class win in the Audi TTS in class VLN Specials up to 2.000 cc cubic capacity, Elmar Deegener (Stelzenberg/ Germany), Jürgen Wohlfarth (Murrhardt/ Germany) and Christoph Breuer (Nettersheim/ Germany) went into the lead of the championship. Carsten Knechtges (Mayen/ Germany), Alexander Böhm (Kelberg/ Germany) and Philipp Leisen (Irrel/ Germany) moved up into position two with their BMW Z4 entered by Black Falcon after their fourth win in the class of VLN series production cars up to 2.500 cc cylinder capacity. The previous championship leaders Mario Merten (Nürburg/ Germany) and Wolf Silvester (Nürnberg/ Germany) were not able to start the race after a technical failure on their BMW Z4 in practice. One of the consequences was that the class of VLN specials up to 2.000 cc cubic capacity which figures the greatest numbers of starters saw the fifth class winner in the fifth race. Maik Rosenberg (Attendorn/ Germany), Emin Akata (Friedrichshafen/ Germany) and Jürgen Dinstühler (Hückeswagen/ Germany) in the BMW 320i entered by Black Falcon finished with an advance of one lap ahead of Jannik Olivo and Elmar Jurek (both from Berlin/ Germany) who scored the win in the Renault Clio Cup classification.

The sixth round of the year will take place in two weeks times already, on 17th July. The 33rd RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen which will take place during the Nürburgring Performance Days will go over the distance of four hours. The VLN invites to the big summer party to take place in the Eifel village ‘Green Hell’ on the evening after the race. All the fans, marshals, officials and participants are cordially invited to enjoy the live music amongst others presented by Rage guitarist Victor Smolski who will play music with some friends and to spend a nice evening in relaxed atmosphere.