The success story of the Team Peugeot RCZ Nokia continues. At the seventh round of the VLN endurance racing championship, Michael Bohrer, Stéphane Caillet, Jürgen Nett and Timo Frings celebrated an unchallenged start-to-finish victory in the category of Diesel cars. Their team mates Cyrus Ayari, Julien Rueflin, Olivier Perez and Eric Robert took the chequered flag with the second Peugeot RCZ 2.0 HDi FAP in third position. A one-two win was spoiled as the race was stopped ten minutes before the scheduled six hours had elapsed.
Qualifying: Almost one minute advance
Both the qualifying session and the race were characterized by constantly changing weather. “We experienced torrential rain, sunshine and gentle rainfall within a few kilometers only”, said Bohrer. Towards the end of qualifying, the 28years old race driver changed to intermediates and set the 49th lap time in the field comprising 194 cars. The next car in the category of Diesel cars followed with a gap of 59 seconds behind.
From the very first metres, start driver Jürgen Nett did not raise any doubts about who was again going to dominate the category of Diesel cars at the six hour race. The champion from 1987 started on rain tyres but changed to slick tyres already after the first lap. “The track was almost completely dry and the sun came out”, informed the Peugeot dealer who nevertheless had a moment of shock three laps later at the section Pflanzgarten. “All of a sudden, there was a torrential rain and I had some aquaplaning. I went off the track to the left and was stopped by a tyre pile. I was lucky that apart from some red-white marks on bodywork I did not suffer any damage.”
The steering wheel of the dynamic sports coupé was then changed to Michael Bohrer who increased their advance. “Track and camber were fine, the lateral impact did not have any consequences. The intermediates had been a good choice.” For the subsequent stint which was completed by Stéphane Caillet the car was equipped with road tyres whilst final driver Timo Frings rejoined the race with cut slicks. “We have tested the complete Kumho portfolio today”, said Grings. “All of the tyres had a fantastic performance.”
Stopping of the race spoiled a possible one-two win
At the moment when the race was stopped, the black Peugeot RCZ 2.0 HDi FAP into second position had just completed its last refuel stop whilst their direct rival was expected at the pits one lap later. Team manager Timo Frings: „That was simply bad luck as we would have been able to celebrate our fourth one-two win if the race had not been stopped, but that’s racing.”
The overall classification after seven races shows the Peugeot RCZ 2.0 HDi FAP into seventh position in the field. Nett, Bohrer and Caillet are seventeenth overall in the drivers’ classification which comprises the total of 1008 participants.
207 RC „VLN“: Class win for the team Lenzen
Stephan Lenzen, Thomas Hetzer and Juan Crespo win class SP2T and in addition set the fastest lap time in their class with the Peugeot 207 RC „VLN“.
