Nürburgring, June 2009: Fog – in the middle of summer. This was the Eifel weather welcome for the teams and drivers at the fifth round of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring. So patience was required as practice and race both started with quite a delay due to the weather conditions. Nothing peculiar for the experienced driver duo Frank Lorenzo and Harald Jacksties. “This happens quite often here at the Nürburgring. We will get there totally relaxed”, the drivers of the InterRacing Seat informed still quite calmly in the morning.
No sooner said than done – and after all, they achieved third position in practice and had the clear goal in mind to put a lot of pressure on their competitors during the race. However, a suddenly appearing problem in the braking system forced start driver Frank Lorenzo to come to the pits immediately at the end of the formation lap. “Due to the necessary stop for repair, we lost one complete lap to the top teams right at the beginning”, summarized Lorenzo, rather annoyed. Thereafter, though, the Seta Leon once again was running like clock work and they started to catch up brilliantly with setting the fastest lap time in their class.
“Originally, we did not want to continue as it looked as if there was nothing more to win being so far behind”, admitted Harald Jacksties who was pretty much exhausted due to the tropical and sultry heat after the race and added: “But our commitment finally has paid out.” With some luck and their driving ability, the InterRacing team managed to fight their way up into second place of class SP3 T and thus maintains its lead in their class in the championship classification and also a place in the top 10 of the overall classification. As the Seat team was able to catch up so brilliantly, the result was also a four times victory for ATS in the class of race cars with two litres turbo engines.
And as if that were not enough: The Opel Astra drivers Fritzsche / Fritzsche / Wolf assured another victory in class SP3 for the light alloy wheel specialists based in Bad Dürkheim. Same situation in class SP8 in which the Corvette team Rehfeld / Renger / Luostarinen finished the race which was shortened by 20 minutes due to heavy rain into first class position. And in the classes of the Honda Civic Cup and of the Seat Leon Cup, too, the ATS motor sport competence was dominating.
