The suspense will continue until the final: With a victory at the 9th round of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft, Elmar Jurek and Jannik Olivo went back into the championship lead of the New Renault Clio Cup. Into second and third places of the race results followed the ‘career changers’ Karl-Heinz Teichmann and Michael Schneider as well as the duo made up of Henry Walkenhorst and Michael Schrey.
Rain, sunshine and sleet storms: The awkward weather conditions in the Eifel region at the penultimate round of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft at the Nürburgring Nordschleife provided turbulent action on the track and hectic moments at the pits. The two leading crews in the New Renault Clio Cup with Karl Brinker and Elmar Jurek/Jannik Olivo, too, experienced quite some moments and changed positions many times in a neck-and-neck race. Championship leader Brinker, though, had to stop after about three hours race time in the section Galgenkopf due to a technical failure. The race drivers from Berlin then scored their fourth victory of the season, went back into the championship lead – and the decision about the title is postponed to the final race. In class SP3 they achieved third place and in the VLN overall classification position 45. “This was a difficult race. The track conditions were different at each corner”, explained Brinker, highly disappointed about the “unfair retirement. If it had at least been my fault?” the driver of the Ring-Racing team mumbled to himself at the pits. Elmar Jurek and Jannik Olivo, in contrast, were one beaming brighter than the other.
In the rainy qualifying already, Jurek, had set fastest practice time. The duo took the race start on rain tyres, just as most of the drivers in the other 175 cars taking part in this endurance racing championship round. “Everything was running perfectly in practice already. But it was a difficult situation under these weather conditions which are so typical for the Eifel region”, informed Jurek.
Under these most difficult track conditions, the crews of Michael Schneider and Karl-Heinz Teichmann as well as Henry Walkenhorst and Michael Schrey had some close battles behind Jurek and his team mate Olivo. The duo Teichmann/Schneider finally was able to secure second position in the classification of the New Renault Clio Cup (place 5 in class SP3), even though they followed the principle: “Better avoid any damage on the car”, as a very happy Karl-Heinz Teichmann emphasised.
”We changed back to slick tyres in lap three, everything was going well but it was really difficult, in particular when you had to leave the racing line”, was the comment of Michael Schrey who finished third in the Clio classification and sixth in class SP3 together with Henry Walkenhorst after his turn.
With their fifth place in the Clio classification behind Peter Utsch and Frank-Dieter Lohmann, Marc Beckord and Knut Wolf finally were quite happy, they are now in third championship position. They had to come to an unscheduled pit stop as Wolf had to get out of the cockpit rapidly due to sickness. “It was extremely difficult and most demanding. There were a lot of accidents and you had to be absolutely concentrated”, reported Beckord later. This was also confirmed by Elöd Szarka and Robert Zehetmayr, who finished into seventh position in the New Renault Clio Cup classification, although start driver Szarka had to fight with a loose accelerator pedal at the beginning. “However, I managed the situation somehow until I came to the scheduled pit stop”, he said laughing.
Werner Uetrecht and Alexander Starke of the Schlaug team finished the penultimate race of this year’s New Renault Clio Cup into place six. Just before the race end, Uetrecht came to the pits again to change tyres and thus lost valuable positions.
This time, luck was not on the side of the drivers in the team Drive-a-Racecar, Michael Trick, Gunther Güyne and Werner Gloyna. They had to stop the race after lap five due to a broken drive shaft. Claude-Alan Besse, too, had to come to an unscheduled pit stop with a damaged generator and just before the race end, his team mate Pierre Moret took over the steering wheel and finally finished eighth.
The final round of the New Renault Clio Cup during the endurance racing championship will take place on 31st of October at the Nürburgring. Bernd Hütter invites to a get-together in the Renault Lounge for the previous evening.
