A successful weekend for Porsche at the start of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring season: At its racing premiere, the new Porsche 911 GT3 R scored an overall victory, the innovative 911 GT3 R Hybrid finished sixth at its debut and Walter Röhrl celebrated a successful racing comeback after 17 years.
Timo Bernhard (Dittweiler/Germany), Marc Lieb (Ludwigsburg/Germany) and Marcel Tiemann (Monaco) are the winners of the first race of the season at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. They had a perfect race without any problems in their 480 HP strong Porsche 911 GT3 R entered by the Porsche Team Manthey. “It is really extraordinary to be on top of the podium right at the worldwide first race participation of the new car”, said Bernhard happily. His works driver colleague Lieb added: “It looks as if the new 911 GT3 R, too, has inherited the proverbial reliability of all the nine eleven race cars.” The Porsche trio finished with an advance of 14.5 and 63.6 seconds respectively ahead of the fastest Audi R8 and the quickest BMW M3.
A promising debut had also the new Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid: Porsche works drivers Jörg Bergmeister (Langenfeld/Germany), Richard Lietz (Austria) and former Porsche junior Martin Ragginger (Austria) brought the white orange race car, the combustion engine of which is completed by two electric motors with 60 kilowatt each at the front axle, on sixth place after a perfect race. “It was a really pleasant surprise for me how well our car was running right at its first race participation”, was the positive summary of Bergmeister. “We have tried a lot of different things during the race and will now concentrate on the further development of the hybrid drive for the 24 Hour Race in May. Our target is to achieve a lower consumption compared to our competitors whilst keeping the performance”, explains Lietz.
Double rally world champion Walter Röhrl (Regensburg/Germany) celebrated his highly acclaimed racing comeback after a break of 17 years. Together with Horst von Saurma-Jeltsch (Stuttgart/Germany) and Chris Harris (Great Britain), he put the series production, 450 HP strong Porsche 911 GT3 RS to a first practical test under racing conditions. “The car has exceeded my greatest expectations and I had really great fun at the steering wheel”, said Röhrl enthusiastically. “We could go the pace of many true race cars. In particular in fast corners and under braking, the 911 GT3 RS was sensationally. And the best of all is: If the journey tonight wouldn’t be so long, I could refit our registration plates to the car and just drive it back to Regensburg without any problem.”
The second round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring is scheduled to start on 10th April at 12 o’clock and runs over the distance of four hours.
