Touring car sports is a favourite domain of Opel. In particular on the home circuit of the make, the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the car manufacturer has been able to celebrate many successes, including a number of class wins scored by Kissing Motorsport, one of the most successful teams in the history of the Nürburgring VLN endurance racing championship. Another highlight had been the overall victory at the 24 Hour Race in 2003 with the work’s entry of an Astra V8 Coupé.
The strong sense of connection of Opel with the “Ring” is also reflected in the test centre established and run by Opel right beside at the “green hell” and where above all the OPC high performance vehicle variants are tested and adjusted to reliability and a perfect handling in a tough 10,000 km test programme.
With the engagement in the VLN series, Opel returns to grassroots motorsport, popular racing sports. The target of the new strategy is to provide customer sports on a technically sophisticated level at reasonable costs. For this purpose, Opel has developed a service package which is currently unrivalled regarding it’s extend.
The main protagonist of the engagement at the Nürburgring Nordschleife is the new Astra OPC which is available for customer sports in competition version from the 2013 season. The Astra OPC “Cup” has been developed and prepared in close cooperation with the successful Opel partner and specialist at the Nürburgring, Kissling Motorsport. The cars are engineered to match the VLN endurance racing championship, the most popular grass roots racing series in Europe. The customer cars will compete in all of the ten rounds of the VLN season and have their own brand trophy in their own class – the Astra OPC Cup. The highlight of the season is expected to be the 24 Hour Race at the Nürburgring. A pot of prize money with attractive cash prizes for the most successful Cup drivers will provide an additional appeal.
“The engagement of Opel will close a gap in Germany’s popular grass roots racing”, says VLN Board Member for Marketing, Karl Mauer. “The make cup will further enhance the status of the series and will certainly attract additional spectators. I am convinced that all those involved, we as organiser, Opel as make, the teams, the drivers and the fans, will benefit from this engagement.”
The design of the Astra racing version is consequently based on the visions and requirements of private competitors. Opel has thus developed a car providing top performance and competitiveness at reasonable costs. An important point hereby is that the car was not only developed and tuned for, but at the Nürburgring Nordschleife itself.
Long-term concept with excellent future perspectives
The Astra OPC “Cup” with two litres turbo engine is a premium race car with a performance of about 300 HP in racing version. The technical specification includes amongst others a lightweight designed bodywork with carbon components and integrated safety structure, a multiple adjustable performance suspension, a racing seat prepared to integrate the HANS safety device, a display logger system with data acquisition and – if required – a quick lifting jack.
Opel, however, does not only offer excellent material to their customers. The package also includes a uniform standard appearance of teams and drivers, a support in technical and organisational matters on-site on and beside the race track as well as fair prices for spare parts. The engagement is finally also based on long-term planning which means for at least the next three years and thus provides a planning reliability and good development perspectives for young ambitious drivers.
