It was not only the sun that was shining at the season launch of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring and which made the many fans around the legendary Eifel track happy together with the spring temperatures. The faces of Stuart Leonard and Paul Wilson from Great Britain, too, were shining at the end of the race over four hours. At their debut in the Aston Martin Vantage V12 GT3 the driver duo achieved a noticeable seventh place in the overall classification. The third place of the second Vantage V12 entered by the Aston Martin Test Centre in class SP8 made the excellent result perfect for the traditional British sports car centre.
„I am more than happy about the result. It is a really great feeling”, said Stuart Leonard happily. “A position in the top ten was our target and this is what we have achieved – even though there is room for improvement. The start was quite tricky and you also have to be extremely concentrated in the traffic with the smaller cars. Once you have got used to it, it is however no longer a problem.” At their debut in the Aston Martin GT3, the driver duo achieved a time of 8:16,271 minutes in the timed practice at the 24.358 kilometres long combination of the Nürburgring short version and the Nordschleife, resulting in tenth position on the grid. The British GT3 sports car was running like a clockwork in the race and came to the pits only for the scheduled stops. After 28 race laps, Leonard and Wilson finished with a gap of 6:48,808 minutes behind the winners. Stuart Leonard: “We are looking forward very much to the next race. The atmosphere around the Nordschleife is an unique as this fantastic race track.”
After four hours race time, the second car entered by the Aston Martin Test Centre finished third in class SP8. Egon Allgäuer, Karim Al-Azhari and Wolfgang Schuhbauer became third with a gap of two laps. Allgäuer had to come to an unscheduled pit stop in the third lap after a collision which was not their fault. After a repair time of about tem minutes, the pit crew sent the car with start number 144 with driver Al-Azhari back onto the track. The last turn in the Aston Martin V12 Vantage was completed by Schuhbauer, Aston Martin Test Centre Nürburgring Director. He managed to bring the V12 safely to the finish despite the track full of debris.
Al-Azhari was happy with his first race participation in the Aston Martin at the Nordschleife: “The VLN is absolutely the most crazy race series that I know”, was his summary after his turn, with a smile in his face. “But seriously: The Nordschleife is fantastic and the Aston Martin is a great race car – I had a lot of fun. The V12 has a good balance and in particular a great speed.”
Also position three, but in class SP10, was achieved by Czyborra, Sidorenko and Holzer in the Aston Martin Vantage GT4. The two race cars entered by Mathol Racing, in contrast, were not that lucky: The car with start number 189 retired after an accident in tenth race lap already. In the last chicane before the start and finish line, the race driver hit a tyre which was left on the track due to a previous incident. The win in class SP10 in their eyes had Wolfgang Weber (Vilshofen/ Germany), Norbert Bermes (Krefeld/ Germany) and Hendrik Still (Schalkenbach/ Germany) for a long time. A few laps before the race end, the car with start number 188 stopped the race with a huge production of smoke at the track section Breidscheid.
A 30 minutes summary of the opening round will be shown in channel Sport1 on 5 April at 16:00hrs. The second race of the VLN endurance racing championship, the 39th DMV 4-HourRace, will take place intwo weeks’ time already.
