Daniela Schmid and Anja Wassertheurer entered by FH Köln (Cologne University of Applied Science) Motorsport powered by Ford win the hot battle at the Nürburgring in their Ford Focus RS and score their excellent fourth win of the season out of so far five rounds of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring.
“We could perhaps even have done better than achieving a class win ‘only’”, said Anja Wassertheurer after the race. “But we did not push too hard on purpose today in order not to become victim of the extremely high temperatures which were prevailing during the race”. This turned out to be the right strategy when the thermometer showed almost 40°C.
Race under control at any time
“Right when braking for the first corner, a competitor hit my car at the rear end and destroyed our aerodynamics”, reports start driver Daniele Schmid. “It was not an easy job today, but we had a fantastic competition and the race was under our control at any time”. She was indeed able to benefit from the pole position and moved ahead from the very beginning, Anja Wassertheuer, too, increased the gap from lap to lap. “The conditions in the car were very difficult today. Our mechanics did not really grant us very much cooling air in the race car in order not to spoil too much of the aerodynamics. The balance of the car was however perfect, it was easy to go to the limits so that we were finally able to go a really very good pace today.”
“Our confidence was limited at the beginning, as we did not yet have any experience in racing the Ford Focus RS at an outside temperature of almost 40°C”, informed Christian Kuhnke, Technical Director of the team FH Köln Motorsport powered by Ford, “and we thus kept a close track of all the values during the race. Fortunately, all was ok in the end.” In five races so far, the new Ford Focus RS which is still very close to series production although details are adapted to racing conditions made it to the finish five times already without any problems.
Position 34 of 160 in the overall classification….
There is a clear upward trend for the team and the Ford Focus RS of the students is getting faster and faster. Apart from position 1 in class SP4T, the FH Köln Motorsport powered by Ford race car was shown in place 34 out of the very competitive field of 160 cars.
“That was an almost completely perfect race”, said team manager Jan Derenbach. “The RS was perfectly prepared by the team. Once again, Daniela and Anja were performing in an excellent and very clever way. Our thanks and also compliments to Dunlop, too, for the delivery of perfect tyres for today’s race. It is very impressive that the tyres coped with the high temperatures over the distance, in combination with these fast lap times.”
The review of the first half of the season for the students’ team supported by sport auto, TRW and DEKRA is very positive, too. The team FH Köln Motorsport powered by Ford has scored four class wins in class SP4T (Specials up to 2.6 litres cubic capacity and turbo) out of five races and they finished on the podium in each round. The regular lady drivers Daniela Schmid and Anja Wassertheurer are currently shown into 25th overall championship position – out of about 750 participants.
The next round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring will take place on 17th July and incorporate the bis VLN summer party.
