The third round of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring could not have been more exciting: After four hours racing time, the winner of the 51st ADAC ACAS H&R Cup was decided on the very last metres only. After 4:00:04.371 hours racing time, the fight amongst the top three teams was finally won by the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR entered by Manthey-Racing with drivers Marc Lieb (Ludwigsburg) and Marcel Tiemann (Monaco). Their advance ahead of the Audi R8 LMS of the Phoenix Racing team driven by Marc Basseng (Leutenbach), Marcel Fässler, Mike Rockenfeller (both from Switzerland) and Frank Stippler (Bad Münstereifel) who followed into second place was 0.981 seconds when they crossed the finish line. The podium was completed by drivers Christian Abt (Kempten), Jean Francois Hemroulle (Belgium), Pierre Kaffer and Lucas Luhr (both from Switzerland) in another R8. At the finish, the first three teams were separated by 3.835 seconds only – one of the tightest results in the history of this unique racing series at the Nordschleife. The event organised by the AC Altkreis Schwelm had attracted 35.000 spectators. The programme was completed by the Touring Car Revival for which more than 30 former DTM race cars had come back to the “Green Hell”.
“There was probably a small misunderstanding”, was Luhr’s contrite comment on the finish of the race. Abt and Lieb entered the start finish straight side by side, but Abt was not quite sure whether he would cross the Line before or after the end of the 4 hours race distance. As he didn’t have enough fuel in his R8 to cover another lap, he decided to play safe. “Had I been aware that this was the decision about the victory, I would have done everything to pass the Manthey-Porsche”, said the annoyed Basseng who missed his 20th overall victory in the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring by less than a second. Tiemann on the other hand was very happy about his second victory of the season: „We have done our best today and our Porsche was going like a Swiss watch. The victory was nevertheless a little surprise for us.”
In lap four, an incident which was not unimportant for the race result happened at the section Adenauer Forst. The cars running second to fifth came onto some slippery spots and went off the track. Whilst the race was over for the two Porsche teams of Mamerow-Racing and Alzen-Motorsport, the two Audi R8 of Timo Scheider, Mattias Ekström (both from Austria) and Marco Werner (Switzerland) as well as Hans-Joachim Stuck (Austria), Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro (both from Monaco) were able to make it back to the pits. “That was really big luck”, said Rockenfeller. “I saw the competitors in front of me going off and managed to back off in time.”
Behind the top three, the Opel Astra V8 Coupé of Ralf Schall (Dornstadt) and Volker Strycek (Dehrn) saw the chequered flag into fourth position. There was a great mixture of GT3 cars and 24h Specials following into the positions behind: the Porsche 911 GT3 driven by Armin Hahne (Monaco), Jochen Krumbach (Eschweiler) and Wolf Henzler (Nürtingen), the BMW Z4 M Coupé of Michael Bäder (Ofterdingen) and Tobias Hagenmeyer (Köln), the Dodge Viper with drivers Dirk Riebensahm, Christian Kohlhaas (both from Andernach) and Christopher Gerhard (Viersen) as well as the new Ford GT of Hermann Tilke (Aachen), Dirk Adorf (Hennef) and Marc Hennerici (Bonn). The top 10 were completed by the winners of the Porsche-Cup class, Matthias Weiland (Hamburg) and Andrzej Dzikevic (Lithuania) as well as Roland Rehfeld (Berlin), Reinhold Renger (Rothenburg-Tauber) and Hannu Luostarinen (Finland) in the Kissling-Corvette. At the finish, all of the top ten cars were still in the same lap.
Tiemann to go into the championship lead after the third round
With his third victory in the class of VLN Specials up to 4.000 cc cylinder capacity, Marcel Tiemann now went into the lead of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring. Into second championship position after three of ten races follow Christoph Dupré (Schiffweiler) and Jürgen Nett (Mayen), who also completed a hat-trick of class wins with this third victory in Honda Civic Cup. In the race, the duo dominated the VLN Honda Junior Team made up of the three rookies Tim Scheerbarth (Dormagen), Dennis and Kristian Nägele (Lauterstein and Donzdorf) which finished second for the second time. Their third class victory in the Seat Leon Supercopa class celebrated Dennis and Marc Busch (both from Hemsbach), and Karl Brinker (Herne) assured his first success in the New Renault Clio Cup.
For most of the participants in the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft, their next race on the programme shall now be the 24 Hour Race at the Nürburgring. After the classical endurance race which will take place from 21st to 24th of May, the teams will have some days off before European’s most popular endurance racing championship will re-start into the second third of the season. The 40th Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy organised by the MSC Adenau running over the usual distance of four hours is scheduled to take place on 13th of June.
