The strong relief in the TIC racing Team was obvious when their Mitsubishi Lancer X TR09 entered the pit lane on 2nd May just after 4 p.m. and after the last lap of the 51st ADAC ACAS H&R-Cup race at the Nürburgring. They had to worry a little about their car until the finish. “This is the last race before the 24h Race”, said team manager Koch. “Should something happen here, we would have 3 weeks time only for the car repair and preparation.”
And indeed, they had a collision with another car in the practice session before the race but the vehicle handling was fortunately not affected. So the TR09 was able to take the start at exactly 12 o’clock on Saturday.
For the first time the team’s drivers Karsten Quadder and Takao Matsui were completed by Uwe Nittel, a professional driver, and they scored excellent lap times far below 10 minutes. So Nittel proved to be a big support for the team. He was quite happy with the set-up of the car. Some slight improvements in the set-up of the suspension, however, still need to be carried out in order to achieve the best possible result at the Nürburgring in three weeks time.
The weather during the race was fine this time so that it was finally possible to test the slick tyres scheduled for a dry track. As all the previous races had taken place in rain or in variable weather a test under these conditions was absolutely necessary and came just still in time.
The team finally yet experienced a very special surprise after the race for which the priority objective this time was not to set fast lap times but to have a race without accidents. Getrag boss Tobias Hagenmeyer confirmed his support for TIC racing and will to the delight of the team join the crew for the 24h Race as fourth driver.
