When on 27th of March the start signal for the first round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring is given for the first time in the 2010 season, up to eight Porsche 911 GT3 in three different versions, all serviced by Manthey-Racing, will cross the start line to take up the battle about points and positions on the podium. The team, the drivers and the fans will be able to get a first visual and technical impression exactly one week earlier on occasion of the official test and set-up sessions.
Manthey-Racing will thus accept the challenge VLN 2010 with seven or eight Porsche racing cars. The motor sport spearhead in the team from Meuspath is for the first time the brand new Porsche 911 GT3 R which will supersede the very successful RSR, the triple winner of the 24 Hours. Thanks to the support received by Porsche Motorsport, the works drivers Timo Bernhard, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas could again be contracted for the season 2010. Marcel Tiemann will be the regular driver in the GT3 R and he will be supported by Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb in alternating compositions. After the 24h Race, Arno Klasen will complete the team in this ‘R’ at selected VLN races.
In 2010, the GT3-MR in the Wochenspiegel design and equipped with a 4 litres RSR engine will again be part of the team and fight in the category SP7. The racing car will be driven by Georg Weiss, Michael Jacobs and Peter-Paul Pietsch and with Oliver Kainz another Nordschleife experienced privateer will this year complete the crew of the three friends. The quartet will in addition bring another GT3 R to the start in which the four drivers will start at the 24h Race.
New are the two Haribo Porsche entered by Manthey-Racing. The third GT3 R in the Manthey squad will be driven around the 24.4 km long circuit by Lance David Arnold, Richard Westbrook, Christian Menzel, Alexandros Margaritis and later also by Hans Guido Riegel. The latter is a descendant of the famous fruit gum dynasty from the Rhineland and will be supported by Mike Stursberg and Wolfgang Kohler who will celebrate his comeback at the Ring. Their target is to enter the top ten in their successful Cup S of the year 2009.
The fourth GT3 R from Meuspath is then scheduled to join the VLN races from the third round. Drivers Armin Hahne, Jochen Krumbach and Marc Gindorf who all know the ‘Ring’ like the back of their hands will then try to push their Moskovskaya Porsche into the leading group.
In addition, two GT3 Cup entered in the traditionally highly competitive Cup class will interfere in the fight for a position on the podium: The well-known Gary Williams, Daniel Cooke, Julian Perry and Tim Raven will complete the laps on the Nordschleife circuit in the 911 with the striking hippie design. New in the team in contrast is the freshly composed drivers’ trio with Rainer Holte, Marc Porsche and Martin Ragginger. Manthey-Racing has furthermore agreed to support the participations of the two Porsche works cars (GT3 R Hybrid, GT3 RS) with manpower and logistics at the Nürburgring. The race participations themselves, however, will be completely under the responsibility and control of the Porsche team from Weissach.
“I am very proud that we are able to start the season with such an exciting and competitive package”, informs team manager Olaf Manthey. “Current times are not really easy regarding the economic situation, we have nevertheless managed to increase the number of race cars considerably compared to last year.” It is last but not least the competitors from Bavaria which makes the series so attractive for the four times winner of the 24 hours. “As superior international companies, Audi and BMW will make big investments so that the competition pressure just on us as a private team from the Eifel region will be very high. But that exactly is our very special motivation as have shown our five VLN overall victories and the 24h win last year. The year 2010 will start afresh, especially as we start with a totally new racing car. I hope that the fans are looking forward to the start end of March just as much as I do!”
