At the recent 49thAdenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy, Christian Menzel took a very good second overall place in a Ferrari 488 GT3 together with his son Nico and Leonard Weiss. Only a few days after this VLN race 4, the 36 times class winner in the worldwide most popular grassroots series is about to start a new and exciting project. A long-term dream will come true for Menzel when he starts at the fifth round of the ADAC Opel Rallye Cup which will take place on 16th/17thAugust as support event of the ADAC Rallye Deutschland. The 47-years old race driver will participate in the first leg of the German round of the FIA World Rally Championship with a 140 hp strong Opel Adam in Cup specification. This part of the event will cover the total of seven special stages over a little more than 100 kilometres on Thursday and Friday. The co-driver in the crew will be Natalie Solbach-Schmidt.
“I have always been particularly interested in rally sport. Early on in my younger days, World Rally Champion Walter Röhrl in the Opel Ascona B 400 was already very well known to me. In 1992, I saw my first world championship rally in Monte Carlo. A friend and I slept four days in the car to follow the Monte live. It has been and is still fascinating for me to see how the teams have to deal with changing conditions all the time and, in doing so, to cope with many compromises.”
In view of this, his guest start in the ADAC Opel Rallye Cup closes the circle. And Menzel has selected this Cup prudently: “Here, I have the chance to compete with others with identical material and to actually see where I stand. I have no idea at all what would be my realistic position amongst all those rally specialists. It is my target not to cause any damage to the car, to have a lot of fun and not to give anyone a reason to laugh at me.” His “home”, however, is and remains the Nürburgring Nordschleife where he is currently active in the VLN at the side of his son Nico.
