Dörr Motorsport had entered six cars for the world’s largest endurance race, and not only did six cars make it to the finish, the team also scored a class win and more top results in the field of over 200 participants.
In practice sessions for the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring and the Nordschleife, the weather was more like in winter for the six cars and its drivers plus the entire Dörr Motorsport team. In spite of the considerable workload, the more than 90 team members had to revert to hot coffee to warm up rather than refreshing soft drinks to cool down. However, at the start of the 38th International ADAC 24-hour race, things got better: the clouds broke, the sun appeared and at places that weren’t affected by the wind, temperatures even reached two-digit values.
The BMW Z4 Coupé GT3 was the spearhead of the team from Butzbach/Hessen. Preparations having finished only a few days before the race, its four drivers Rudi Adams, Stefan Aust, Markus Großmann and Jochen Übler first had to adapt the car to the requirements of the Nordschleife in free practice. The stalwarts did a good job, but couldn’t really fully unleash the car’s potential in first qualifying in the evening. The reason: the cold wind blew rain showers on the track time and time again and as the session went on, a thick fog came up, forcing the clerk of the course to abort the session prematurely. In second qualifying on Friday afternoon, temperatures remained below ten degrees, but rain was significantly less. The crew of the GT3 car was able to improve its lap time and thus its starting grid position considerably, ending up 21st.
Last year’s class winner, the BMW Z4 in the SP6 class, was driven by Stefan Aust, Hanspeter Strehler, Dierk Möller-Sonntag and Peter Posavac. After its last running in the Langstreckenmeisterschaft, the car underwent a complete overhaul to make it onto the grid: the engine and the gearbox were new, enabling the drivers to make full use of the performance. The four drivers benefited from the potential and qualified the car on an excellent 32nd place overall, which made them second in class. But in spite of the difficult track conditions, the other drivers also did a more than decent job. The team in the newly-built BMW M3 GT4 had only little time to test the car in real racing conditions in the Langstreckenmeisterschaft and as a result also had to use the practice sessions prior to the 24 hours to do fine-tuning on the set-up. The hotly contested class with excellent cars and drivers only allowed for a 14th place in class and 96th position overall for Dörr Motorsport’s new car.
Get in, set off, have fun: that was the motto for the line-up in the BMW 135i. The car made its debut in the 2009 24-hour race and was able to score an untroubled class win back then. In 2010, winning the SP8T class was the goal again. With its driver line-up of Michael Funke, Tom Moran, Sebastian Schneider and Bernhard Wagner, Dörr Motorsport had an able team on the grid who were certainly capable of repeating last year’s victory.
For the BMW 120d, running with BMW Performance Parts, the practice sessions went without any trouble. Friedrich Holoch, Christian Penno, Roland Konrad and team principal Rainer Dorr didn’t need to change the set-up or to work on the performance. They just had to keep running and cope with the adverse weather conditions to be prepared for everything during the race. That was the target on the nimble diesel-powered car.
For the team with the converted “Phantom”, there were more problems to deal with. Under the guidance of Kristian Vetter, a 3.5 litre diesel engine was built into the BMW 1-series. Race-proven drivers Heiko Hahn, Simon Englerth and Frank Weishar also provided assistance for Vetter and worked hard on the car before, during and after the practice sessions. When the car was finally running, the quartet immediately showed that they were the team to beat in the D3T class and they took the lead right away. In the overall field, the 135 D qualified 111th.
