It is definitely not easy to build on the success of the past, in particular when there are several months between “yesterday” and “today”. The team of Dörr Motorsport (Butzbach/Germany), however, apparently was not at all affected by this pause and continued at the first race of the 2010 season where they stopped last year – in winning class SP6.
Rudi Adams (Ahütte/Germany) and Stefan Aust (Münster/Germany) are totally familiar with the race car from Dörr Motorsport, the BMW Z4 Coupé. At the opening round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring, the two quick drivers were actively supported by Hanspeter Strehler (Switzerland) and Peter Posavac (Essen/Germany). Despite all of the experience which both team and drivers have, they had to cope with some difficulties in practice already. The timed practice session over 1.5 hours was marked by low temperatures and also again and again by heavy rainfalls. In addition, there were many accidents on the track which slowed down the four drivers continuously. Rudi Adams finally got a free practice lap and with a time of 8:57 minutes in the black BMW Coupé he set fastest time in class SP6 on the cold asfalt track in the Eifel. This was the basis for further success.
Support for the Coupé newcomers
It was also Adams who took the start and who was immediately able to set a distance to his competitors. He finished his second race lap with a time of 8:44 minutes which was also the fastest time of the day in the team of Dörr Motorsport. From lap seven, the lap times started to become slower. The reason was the many accidents all around the circuit. After his eleventh lap, he came to the pits for refuelling and handed over the steering wheel to Stefan Aust. According to his own statement, Aust drove \”the race of his life\”. He became quicker lap by lap and he was about to break the mark of nine minutes. He thus confirmed their first place and changed the BMW race car to his team mate Strehler from Switzerland in lap 17 with quite a comfortable advance. This was the first race for Strehler in the team of Dörr Motorsport. Despite his own doubts, Strehler did a very good job, set constantly fast lap times and managed to stay in the lead without being involved in any incidents. He, too, dominated their class and changed to Peter Posavac in lap 22. For Posavac who lives in Essen/Germany this was also his first race in the Z4 but he also got used to the car prepared by Dörr Motorsport very quickly which was clearly confirmed by his fastest lap of 9:07 minutes. After the total of 26 race laps, the BMW Z4 Coupé of Dörr Motorsport took the chequered flag with an advance of more than one lap ahead of their competitors in class SP6.
The BMW 135i which was also prepared and entered by Dörr Motorsport did not have a start of the season as perfect as the Coupé had. They had a stop for repair lasting almost 1.5 hours in their sixth of 15 completed laps. The reason was a broken pipe in the power steering – a damage which caused the car to be undriveable. Stefan Kenntemich (Wettenberg/Germany), Rainer Prenzel (Rosbach/Germany) and Guido Majewski (Leipzig/Germany) thus could not complete many laps but enjoyed very much driving the fast BMW 135i.
