The current championship standing reflects the successful concept of the team Bonk-motorsport which is based in Münster: Position one after four out of ten races. And the team was hereby pretty close to decide not to start with the current racing car, the Bonk-BMW-Z4-Coupé. “On Friday before the first race, we realized that we were far away from the expected performance” informed team principle Michael Bonk after the fourth race of the VLN season.
End of 2009, the racing team which is based in Münster had already reflected on how to be able to score another championship title. “We were thinking of what would have to happen if we wanted to fight for the title”, said team principle Michael Bonk. The team Bonk-motorsport had already won the overall championship in the years 2002 and 2006. With Mario Merten/ Wolf Silvester, Bonk-motorsport won one VLN overall title (2006) and scored two titles in the series production car championship.
Michael Bonk and brother Peter discussed and decided together with the drivers Mario Merten/ Wolf Silvester in which class the two race drivers would have the greatest chances in the season 2010. The four men then further discussed the important question: Which race car would be the best one? Although a participation in the Porsche 997 GT3 in class SP6 initially was in the focus, Bonk-motorsport finally decided to compete with the BMW-Z4-Coupé in class SP3. In winter already, it appeared that class SP3 would turn out to host the greatest number of competitors.
When at the first race of the season the Z4-Coupé did not show the performance as Bonk-motorsport had expected for that time, team principle Michael Bonk was close to withdraw from the championship. After the practice on Friday, an emergency meeting was organised in which the decision to nevertheless start the race on Saturday was taken. Interestingly enough, the Bonk Team won their class SP3 at this first round with drivers Mario Merten / Wolf Silvester. “We simply benefited at this first race from the retirements of the Fritzsche brothers in the Opel-Astra OPC and Weber/ Bermes in the Honda S2000”, comments Wolf Silvester today the surprising success at the opening round end of March.
This victory lead to a considerable motivation of the whole team and mechanics, engineers and drivers restarted working with new drive. A series of luck, as confirm both team principle and drivers today, ensured that Merten/ Silvester finished into second position in their class at each of the further three rounds so that they are currently shown into first place overall. At this point, though, the whole team waves aside when talking about further victories. “Up to now, all the results scored are counted in the championship standing. So nothing is decided yet after the races so far.”
It can however of course not be predicted whether luck will remain on the side of Bonk-motorsport. Anyway, in addition to the team principle, Wolf Silvester, too, indicates a number of facts which must run well in order to achieve further successes and he remains very cautious regarding his own prognosis on the further running of the season. In addition to a reliable race car, a reliable team is essential according to Wolf Silvester and of course a little bit of luck is also helpful.
The luck which is currently with the team was demonstrated in Race 2 when the engine stopped due to an electronic problem in the Z4 just before the end of the race. Mario Merten was encouraged to remain inside the car. After a short period only, the team managed to restart the engine with the aid of radio communication and Merten was able to secure their second place successfully until the finish.
Meanwhile team principle Michael Bonk considers the Bonk-BMW Z4-Coupé as a potential winning car in class SP3. “We have made big progress in the overall set-up of the car and gained in performance with each kilometres covered in races 2 to 4”, comments team principle Michael Bonk the performance of their car after the fourth race of the season. Michael Bonk is also confident that they will still gain slightly in performance for the remaining races. The team principle is confident to achieve even faster lap times as according to his opinion, the balance of their race car will be completely perfect within the next three to four races.
