At the fifth round of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring season, the motorsport team of the Cologne University of Applied Science achieved second place for the third successive time already – Dennis Nägele, Kristian Nägele and Tim Scheerbarth thus assume the role as a promising candidate to win the championship.
As if they had booked the podium in the tv14 Honda Civic Cup by subscription, the VLN Honda juniors could move up onto the podium for the fourth time in the current season already after the had taken the chequered flag at the end of the 49th ADAC Reinoldus Langstreckenrennen.
Starting from position three on the grid, it was start driver Dennis Nägele who attracted a lot of attention at the beginning of the race. He moved up into the lead of the tv14 Honda Civic Cup with exciting driving manoeuvres which were frequently accompanied by standing ovations. Second stint and Tim Scheerbarth overtook. The youngster managed to defend the lead successfully but then suddenly had to come to the pits one lap earlier than scheduled due to misfirings. The crew of the Cologne University of Applied Science reacted promptly but lost a lot of time due to the queue in front of the fuel pump as there was no empty fuel station at such short notice. “That’s pretty annoying. There is such a high speed now in the Cup that our fuel consumption is always a little higher than the one of our competitors”, explains Christian Kuhnke, Technical Director of the team of students from Cologne. Scheerbarth continued in the race car and rejoined the race in second place. “We then decided to let the Dupré-Civic move away and slowed down a little in order to economise a little fuel.” Kristian Nägele was the driver of the last part of the race and entered into close battles with the team Totz. The VLN Honda Junior-Team was finally classified as usual into second position.
”Before the season, we had always explained in interviews that it would be a really great success to finish the championship amongst the top three teams after the last race”, said Dennis Nägele. “Now it really looks as if we could indeed achieve this target. We are really quick and also quite reliable – we are now heading for the first win of the season!” This looks like a really clear definition of the direction to go for the second half of the season.
