In the third round of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring, the Black Falcon team made up of Frank Bierther, Daniel Schwerfeld and Bona Ventura achieved an excellent class and group victory in their BMW E46 M3 in front of the impressive scenery of more than 35.00 spectators.
For the last time before the highlight of the season, the 24h Race, the endurance racing championship invited the race drivers to come to the Eifel circuit. It was a perfect weekend for the V6 team with drivers Bierther, Schwerfeld and Ventura. The trio succeeded for the first time in gaining this top position in the series cars’ classification and was much celebrated on the podium by the enthusiastic spectators. “Everything was running perfectly during the race today”, said Bierther. “It was really great fun. The fantastic scenery of the spectators around the track, the super racing weather and a perfect car – what more could you want? Herewith I wish to express my special compliments to the whole team!”
Not so lucky, though, in the race was the crew with race number 1 on the doors. After only three laps, the BMW E92 entered in class V4 had to return to the pits after a collision with a badly damaged front end. In the shortest possible time was the BMW driven by the current Champion Alex Böhm, Sean Paul Breslin and Junior Trophy winner Christer Jöns repaired and could rejoin the race. Despite the big damage on the front end, the team with car number one was able to gain its fourth class victory and thus collected important points for the championship classification.
”The racing incident was of course a body blow for our ambition to gain the title”, admitted Böhm. “But it was important to come at all to the finish. We had to struggle with a great loss of power due to the damaged front end, but the fact that we have taken the chequered flag and could thus gain important championship points might turn out to become very important later on in the season.”
The flagship of Black Falcon, the BMW M3 E92 V8 driven by Dillon Koster, Ventura and Jöns, on the other hand showed an impressive performance. The strongest of the Falken race cars achieved 24th position overall and place 5 in the very strong class SP7 and could thus once more demonstrate the capability of the car. Jöns hereby showed how quick the BMW can be driven when he set lap times of below nine minutes.
“I really enjoyed the laps in the V8”, said Jöns. “It was for the first time that I could achieve really fast lap times at the Nordschleife, my fastest one was 8:56 minutes. The E92 still has a lot of potential and I am therefore looking forward very much to the 24h Race when we will certainly be able to find one or another additional second.”
