At the 41st ADAC Barbarossapreis, Christian Mamerow (Castrop-Rauxel) and Dirk Werner (Kissenbrück) celebrated the second victory of the season for Mamerow-Racing. At this exciting eighth round of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring, the duo finished with an advance of 55,585 seconds ahead of Marcel Tiemann (Monaco), Romain Dumas (Switzerland) and Arno Klasen (Karlshausen) in the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of Mathey-Racing. Hans-Joachim Stuck (Austria), Frank Biela (Monaco) and Marc Basseng (Leutenbach) who were driving an Audi R8 LMS entered by Phoenix-Racing completed the podium. Jörg Müller and Augusto Farfus (both from Monaco) achieved fourth position at the first participation of their BMW M3 GT2 in Europe and also enjoyed their first kilometres in the lead of the strong field of this most popular endurance racing championship in Europe.
“We are very happy with the first participation of our new car at the Nordschleife”, informs Firedhelm Nohl, Head of the BMW Sports and Touring Car Technical Department. “We have been able to complete our development programme as scheduled. One of the most important points was reliability and we have been able to prove that we can manage the distance without any problems. Maybe we can achieve a place on the podium at the next round in two weeks time.” Comparing the fastest lap times during the race, the BMW M3 GT2 was in the leading group right from the beginning. With a lap time of 8:12,882 minutes, Müller/Farfus were on the same level as the Audi R8 LMS.
A surprising performance, both in the timed practice and in the race, showed the Porsche 911 GT3 of the Wochenspiegel Team. The trio with Georg Weiss (Monschau), Michael Jacobs (Roettgen) and Marcel Tiemann gained pole position with a lap time of 8:13,486 minutes. They also set the fastest lap in the race (8:17,781 minutes) in this second Manthey-Porsche but unfortunately had to retire after twelve laps.
After the first pit stops had been completed, the Mamerow-Porsche went into the lead in lap 14 and was able to increase his lead constantly. “A great victory”, said Mamerow happily. “After our second place at the last race, the team was now recompensed with the second overall victory in the current season. We have perfectly made the best of our possibilities and could constantly make a good pace. Even though the advance seemed to be very comfortable at the end, it was quite a hard battle to come so far.”
It was on the very last metres of the race only that the fight about second position was decided. At the section of the Döttinger Höhe, Basseng closed up Tiemann in front of him and they then had a slight collision at the area of Tiergarten. Tieman was the luckier one and finally managed to keep second position until the finish. “I suddenly realized an impact at the left rear part of the car and it was really difficult to keep the Porsche on the track,” was Tiemann’s comment. Basseng’s description of the situation: “With my excessive speed, I tried to catch the Manthey-Porsche at Tiergarten when all of a sudden it changed its racing line.” A hot tempered discussion after the race ended with a decision by the Stewards. Both drivers got a reprimand and will be under observation for the next race.
Dennis Rostek (Porta-Westfalica), René Rast (Stolzenau) and Nicki Thiim (Rinteln) were driving the second Audi R8 LMS entered by Phoenix and finished fifth, ahead of Uwe Alzen (Betzdorf) and Lance-David Arnold (Duisburg) who became sixth in the quickest Cup-Porsche. The top ten were completed by Norbert Fischer (Cologne), Marco Seefried (Nürnberg) and Nick de Bruijn (Netherlands) in the Porsche 911 GT3, Volker Strycek (Dehrn), Andreas and Ralf Schall (both from Dornstadt) in the Opel Astra V8 Coupé, Rodney Forbes (Australia) and David Horn (Steinbach) in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup and Rudi Adams (Ahütte), Stefan Aust (Münster) and Wolf Silvester (Nürnberg) in a BMW Z4 Coupé entered by Dörr-Motorsport.
First class victory for the VLN Honda Junior-Team
At this eighth round of the season, Dennis and Kristian Nägele (Lauterstein and Donzdorf) as well as Tim Scheerbarth (Dormagen) celebrated the first class victory for the VLN Honda Junior-Team in the Honda Civic Cup class. With an advance of 20,274 seconds, the trio finished ahead of Frank Totz (Brakel) and Peter Kreuer (Cologne). “All good things come in threes”, was the slogan of Renault Clio driver Karl Brinker (Herne) who was enthusiastic about his third victory in class SP3. The 50 years old driver is now also back in the lead of the New Renault Clio Cup.
Change in the championship lead: Black Falcon goes into first place
Alexander Böhm (Kelberg), Christer Jöns (Ingelheim) and Sean Paul Breslin (Great Britain) have moved into the lead of the overall classification in the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring, with one of two possible results so far not considered for championship points. Although the previous championship leaders Rolf Derscheid (Much) and Michael Flehmer (Overath) were able to score another victory in the class of VLN production cars up to 1800 cc, the Black-Falcon-Trio was able to collect more points as during the season they usually had a greater number of competitors in their class.
Reuter happy with the first participation of the ten OPC-Racecamp-Finalists
Four out of five teams of the OPC-Racecamp took the chequered flag at the end of the four hours race distance of the 41st ADAC Barbarossapreis. Only Charlotte Wilking (Waltrop) and Thierry Kilchenmann (Spiegel) had to stop in advance due a collision. “All of them have shown a good performance at their first race and collected important experience”, said Manuel Reuter, initiator and team manager of the Team OPC Race Camp. “It is only a pity that Charlotte was involved in a collision in the third lap without this being her fault, but this happens in racing. All in all, I am very happy with the result.”
