Difficult conditions prevailed at the 2nd round of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft on 18th April 2009 at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. The team Schubert Motorsport had five cars at the start, in different classes …
As before at the last championship race, the Schubert drivers Jörg Viebahn (Engelskirchen) and Stian Sorlie (Norway) were “lent” to the team Scheid so that the duo was able to collect experience in a more powerful car with regard to their participation in the 24 Hour Race Nürburgring (23rd/24th May 2009).
There was once again greatest interest in the new BMW M3 GT4 entered by Schubert Motorsport. After the class victory at the opening round two weeks ago achieved by Jörg Müller and Jochen Übler, the car was this time driven by Andy Priaulx (Great Britain) and Marcus Schurig (Sport Auto sports editor) in class SP10. These four drivers will then also make up the team for the 24 Hour Race at the Nürburgring. They could not score a class win this time as they unfortunately missed this great success by 29 seconds after the 4 hours racing time. The team was nevertheless very happy. It was the first time on Saturday for Marcus Schurig and the triple Touring Car World Champion Andy Priaulx to drive the car and considering this, it was going extremely well. “The new BMW M3 GT4 has completed both 4 Hour Races without any problems. All of the four drivers could gain a lot of experience and that was most important for us”, informs team manager Torsten Schubert.
The story of the three BMW 320 Diesel in class VDT1 is a short one. Both, the team of Peter Posavac (Essen), Lars Stugemo (Sweden) and former Touring Car European and triple Swedish Touring Car Champion Richard Göransson (Sweden) as well as the trio Jürgen Dinstühler (Hückeswagen), Emin Akata (Friedrichshafen) and Andreas Winkler (Stetten) had to stop the race early on. Michael Auriemma, John Mayes (both from the United States) and Nils Tronrud (Norway) had to retire after almost 75 minutes. „It was a pity of course that we had such a bad luck today. But that’s part of the game in motorsport when you race in the rain at the Nordschleife”, commented team manager Torsten Schubert the retirements.
So much the better it was for the three drivers’ team in class SP2. This team of Schubert Motorsport consisted of well-known faces all of which now had their first appearance at the 24.369 kilometres long combination of the Nürburgring Nordschleife and the Nürburgring sprint circuit. In the last years, Prince Khaled Al Faisal, Prince Abdulaziz Al Faisal and Brit Paul Spooner already started at the 24 Hours of Dubai for the team based at Oschersleben and this time finished into fourth class position in their perfectly prepared Mini Cooper S. “All of the three have done a very good job”, informed Torsten Schubert after the race, “and we are now really looking forward to the 24h Nürburgring.”
