What is a normal car driver doing when he must use his car in blistering heat and never-ending sun shine? Correct, he would switch on the air conditioning. Any what does a race drive who is in the same situation? He simply speeds up in order to arrive earlier back to the pits and to hand over the steering wheel to his team mate. That was the successful formula of Mathol Racing when they won their class GT4 last weekend. But the big heat at the Nürburgring was not the only reason for the victory scored by Norbert Bermes (Willich/ Germany), Wolfgang Weber (Vilshofen/ Germany) and Rikkard Nilsson (Balduinstein/ Germany). Rüdiger Schicht and Dr. Sebastian Schäfer (both coming from Switzerland) in contrast achieved a place in the middle field only as the ABS and the fuel pump got too high temperatures.
The class win which they had achieved at the 24 Hour Race seemed to have given wings to the driver trio in the Aston Martin Vantage V8. Weber, Bermes and Nilsson, however, had a hard battle for the class win, above all with the strong Ginetta G50. The Mathol trio as well as the Aston Martin finally were a class of their own. Despite the extraordinary high temperatures, the three drivers had a perfect race without any problems. Whilst many drivers had to struggle with the heat in their moving saunas, the Mathol drivers were performing as if this were a race under totally normal circumstances.
The stresses and strains then became nevertheless quite apparent at the drivers’ changes. “The three have done a really very good job”, commented team manager Matthias Holle their performance. “It is incredibly hot today in all the cars and to constantly show this performance under these circumstances is absolutely fantastic.” Everybody was nevertheless somehow relieved when the race was stopped ten minutes before the scheduled race end due to the accidents after it had started to rain. Mathol Racing won class SP10 in which all of the GT4 cars were competing with an advance of one lap.
The duo Schicht/ Schäfer, too, would have liked to go full pace but the Honda Civic Type R race car temporarily had some objections. The duo was doing very well when all of a sudden several components failed all at the same time due to the high temperatures. After a repair time of about 20 minutes, they were able to rejoin the race after cooling with an external fan and with ice cubes as well as after removing the underbody. The Mathol Civic lost two laps consequently. “That was really bad luck, they could have finished into the top ten in this very competitive class”, said Matthias Holle who was however happy that the two race drivers did not give up although they had lost so much time.
The next race for Mathol Racing in the Rundstreckenchallenge will take place right next weekend at the Nürburgring. The sixth round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft will then follow only one week later. Whatever the temperatures will be, the summer will remain exiting and above all hot.
