The Phoenix Team was absolutely enthusiastic about their success: After their brilliant result at the 24h Race recently, Marc Basseng (Neusalza Spremberg/ Germany) and Frank Stippler (Bad Münstereifel/ Germany) just followed up on their series of victories for Audi at the Nürburgring Nordschleife at the 43rd Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy. Within the most popular national racing series, this victory of the driver duo represented the first win of an Audi R8 LMS ultra in the current season. After a race time of 4:01:06.777 hours, the super sports car from Ingolstadt took the chequered flag with an advance of 46.890 seconds ahead of Alexander Roloff (Berlin/ Germany) and Jan Seyffarth (Querfurt-Leimbach/ Germany) who were driving a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 of the team ROWE RACING. The podium was completed by Christopher Haase (Kulmbach/ Germany) and Luca Ludwig (Bornheim/ Germany) in the second Phoenix-R8. A one hour summary of the race will be broadcasted on channel Sport1 on Wednesday 27 June, at 17:30hrs.
With a time of 8:05.783 minutes in the morning timed practice, Stippler had gained pole position. “I had an almost clear lap in which I had to pass only two cars – and this doesn’t happen very often”, said the Audi driver. “Furthermore, the cold but dry conditions were just perfect to take advantage of the maximum performance of the engine.” This starting position was the basis for the later success of the driver duo. “We were thus able to work out a little reserve”, said Basseng who celebrated his 23rd victory in the endurance racing championship. “Our Audi was running absolutely perfectly throughout the entire race so that we managed to defend our lead.” It was only during their first pit stop that Basseng and Stipler lost their lead for one lap. Rologg and Seyffarth were very happy finishing second. “Considering the amount of lack which we’ve had during this season, a podium position is really fantastic”, said Seyffart. “Right after the start, we gained some positions and were then performing very close to the leaders. We didn’t make it on top of the podium today but we will see at the next round.” Haase and Ludwig finally missed second place by only 1.581 seconds. “I was pushing very hard during the last laps. Due to two yellow flag sections on the track, however, we didn’t make it – we would have needed one more race lap.” Into fourth position finished Martin Ragginger (Austria) and Sebastian Asch (Ammerbruch/ Germany) in a Porsche 911 GT3 R of the team Falken Motorsports. The top five were completed by Henri Moser (Switzerland), Kai Riemer (Stuttgart/ Germany) and Rudi Adams (Ahütte/ Germany) in a McLaren MP4 who thus scored their best result of the current season for the British GT3 sports car.
The fastest Cup Porsche was driven by Christian Menzel (Kelberg/ Germany) and Wolfgang Kohler (Aldingen/ Germany who finished sixth. Andreas and Ralf Schall (both from Dornstadt/ Germany) finished the race into 29th place overall. The winners in group H thus demonstrated in an impressive way the potential in the quite aged former DTM Mercedes Benz and also in the driver duo. The fastest VLN series production car, the BMW Z4 of the team Scuderia Augustusburg Brühl, was driven by Dieter Weidenbrück (Wesseling/ Germany) and Markus Schmickler (Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler/ German) finishing into 32nd overall position. The victory in the Renault Clio Cup class went to Helmut and Horst Baumann (Alfter and Bonn/ German).
After four of ten rounds, Markus Fugel (Chemnitz/ Germany) and Uwe Wächtler (Hohenstein-Ernsttahl/ Germany) now went into the championship lead. The driver duo has won their class of VLN Specials up to 2000 cc cylinder capacity in all the races so far. Into second position of the table are Wolfgang Weber (Vilshofen/ Germany), Norbert Bermes (Krefeld/ Germany) and Marcel Belka (Lehrte/ Germany), who celebrated their third victory in the Aston Martin Vantage. Belka is also shown in the lead of the VLN Junior Trophy. The results of the 43rd ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy and the championship standing remain provisional due to a post-event technical check to be carried out in class V4. The results in this class were suspended, too.
The fifth round of the year, the 52nd ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen, will take place in two weeks time already. The race over a four hour distance will be the final round of the first half of the VLN endurance racing championship season at the Nürburgring.
