At the second round of the VLN endurance championship, the teams and drivers from all over the world respond to the call of the legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife. More than 190 cars have once again submitted their entries for the 42nd DMV 4 Hour Race.
The more than 190 teams at the second VLN race of the season will be driven by about 450 drivers from 28 different nations. Just like at the season opener, the field will again be headed by more than 30 GT3 race cars of the brands of Audi, Bentley, BMW, Ferrari, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche. Successful top drivers such as the current DTM Champion Marco Wittmann, the ADAC GT Masters winners Christopher Mies and Connor De Phillippi or the Blanc-pain GT Series winners Maximilian Buhk and Dominik Baumann will be in the cockpits.
Pro-Am class highly contested
In the GT3 class, three winners are nowadays awarded prizes: in the Profi classification, in the Pro-Am classification and in the Gentlemen classification. These categories now also affect the day classification in the class and the awarding of cups at the prizegiving ceremony. The teams competing against each other in the Pro-AM category have traditionally been extremely popular with the true and competent VLN fans.
In the 2017 season, the Wochenspiegel Team Monschau enters a Ferrari 488 GT3 which will be driven by Oliver Kainz, Jochen Krumbach and Mike Stursberg at the second round of the series. Apart from them, Klaus Abbelen, Sabine Schmitz and Andreas Ziegler – with their Frikadelli-Porsche 911 GT3 R – are also promising candidates for the Pro-Am winners’ trophy. A Mercedes-AMG GT3 has been entered by Landgraf Motorsport for drivers Klaus Landgraf, Markus and Stefan Schmickler.
Two weeks ago, the first Pro-Am victory in the VLN went to amateur driver Otto Klohs who was driving the Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R together with professional drivers Sven Müller and Robert Renauer at the opening round of the season. At the second round, Klohs will share the cockpit with Lars Kern and Mathieu Jaminet from France. The crew in the second car entered by Manthey-Racing is made up of “Steve Smith“, Hari Proczyk and Matteo Cairoli.
Spectacular and exceptional: class SP8
Class SP8, the class for cars with production-based engines up to 6,250 cc capacity, provides a colourful mixture. The large-volume race cars of the calibre of Aston Martin Vantage, BMW M3 GTR, Ferrari 458, Ford Mustang GT, Lamborghini Huracán or Lexus RCF are also very popular with the fans at the Nordschleife.
The NGK Spark Plug Racing Team was quite unlucky with their Ferrari 458 at the season opener as they retired already in the formation lap. At the second round, the GT sports car which was completely updated during the winter break shall finally have a perfect take-off. “We have achieved huge successes with the old car but we must admit that it has seen better days”, explains Martin Kohlhaas, team manager and driver at the same time. “We have decided to acquire a new Ferrari. The bodywork comes from the GT3 version but was, just as the technical equipment, modified correspondingly for a start in class SP8.”
Dörr Motorsport quarreled with their performance at the first round with a „capricious rear wing“ on the Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo, as they stated and which prevented the team from Frankfurt/Main finally from taking the start at all. The problems on the Italian super sports car have meanwhile been resolved so that Dominik Schwager, Philipp Wlazik and Uwe Wächtler are finally confident to complete as many race laps as possible.
For the first time this year, Ring Racing from Boxberg near the Nürburgring will bring two cars to the start. Last season, the team scored two class wins in SP8. They have now entered both the salon car Lexus ISF CCS-R and the Coupé Lexus RCF for the 42nd DMV 4 Hour Race.
They all will be chasing privateer Bernd Kleeschulte who won the class at the opening race with his BMW M3 GTR. For the 47 years’ old, this was the fifth class win in the VLN and the first one in class SP8.
Sheer motorsport: Experience on-site or in the livestream
The start for the 42nd DMV 4 Hour Race will be given on Sunday, 8th April 2017, at 12 o’clock. The starting grid will be based on the results achieved in the preceding timed practice from 08:30 to 10:00hrs. Between the practice and the race, ticket holders will have the possibility to visit the pit lane during the pitwalk and to then even join the starting grid. Entry tickets will be available on-site at the box-offices, at the access points to the paddocks and at the open grandstands at the Grand Prix Circuit. Living motorsport from close-by can be experienced for the family-friendly price of 15 euros (young people under the age of 14 years have free entry). Entrance all around the Nordschleife is free of charge.
From 08:15hrs, the second VLN race will be broadcasted live in the internet through the official website VLN.de and be transmitted through the VLN Facebook channel.
