Rising suspense: With their victory at the seventh round of the New Renault Clio Cup during the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft at the Nürburgring, Elmar Jurek and Jannik Olivo took the lead in the Clio classification. After an exciting race, Knut Wolf and Marc Beckord finished into second and Henry Walkenhorst into third position.
The previous leader in the Renault Clio classification, Karl Brinker, had no chance to influence the race action at the green hell. Technical problems in practice already caused his team Ring-Racing to do some extra shifts. Electronic problems then stopped Brinker after the first race lap. The way was thus finally clear for the fastest in practice and second in the championship classification, Elmar Jurek, Jannik Olivo and their other competitors. After the brilliant start of Olivo, Elmar Jurek again demonstrated that he is in top form. In practice already, he showed an excellent performance and set his personal fastest time: “9:48.01 minutes. That was perfect”, he said with a big smile in his face. “After Jannik had finished his start turn, I experienced some problems to find my rhythm at first and it took me some laps – also because of the lapping, but it went better and better afterwards”, said the race driver from Berlin. The duo finished into 54th position overall and third in class SP3, ahead of their Clio make mates Knut Wolf and Marc Beckord into fourth position and Clio driver Henry Walkenhorst in place six. The leaders in the New Renault Clio Cup overall classification are now Olivo and Jurek ahead of Brinker and the duo made up of Wolf and Beckord.
”It was a fantastic race, we are picking up more and more speed”, informed Knut Wolf and Marc Beckord. And team manager Manfred Schlaug added smiling: “A perfect pair. And we are also very happy with Peter Utsch and Frank-Dieter Lohmann into fifth and Werner Uetrecht and Alexander Starke in sixth place”, he said.
Big disappointment in contrast in the team drive-a-racecar around team engineer Reinhard Sesterheim and team manager Martin Trick: “That was a weekend to forget”, they reported. The Clio race car in which Trick, Werner Gloyna and Stefan Winkler wanted to start the race, stopped after the first practice lap: An oil track on the circuit became his undoing. Their team mates Felix Schmitt and Marc Hurler had to stop the race after the second lap – also because they went off the track which was like glass: The reason this time was leaked coolant.
The seventh championship race also finished with a crash for Clio newcomer Rolf Weissenfels who started the race for the first time in a team with John Scherf and Jörg Walkowski: He had a collision with Clio driver Elöd Szarka in lap eight and both Clios were so badly damaged that they could not continue the race. Bad luck also for Axel Linther who was shown third for a long time: He retired in the last race lap due to technical failure. “We do not yet know what the problem is, but altogether, we not unhappy”, said team manager Michael Mintgen.
Ring-Racing drivers Pierre Morret and Claude-Alain Besse benefited from the retirement – they gained third position. The Ring-Racing team, however, was enthusiastic about the “absolutely perfect race” of VLN newcomers Horst and Helmut Baumann and Klaus Niesen who finished eighth in the Clio class: “Everything is going on well. The lap times are getting better and better”, was the summary of Klaus Völker. “At the beginning, I had difficulties to pass the cars in front of me. It took me some laps until I really could made the pace”, informed start driver Klaus Niesen.
The next round of the New Renault Clio Cup at the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft will take place on 3rd of October.
