Is it all over now for Rodney Forbes regarding the Championship? Together with his team mate Kai Riemer, the Australian race driver achieved second place in the Porsche Cup class at the Six Hour Race of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft. The team just barley missed the victory. As double starter, team manager Matthias Weiland competed in both of the two other Cup Porsche entered by Weiland-Racing.de. He was very satisfied with positions six and seven in this very competitive class.
The spirit in the team was however split after the race. Weiland-Racing.de again was one of the quickest teams in the field of the Cup-Porsche. In particular the Flying-Horse Porsche of Riemer and Forbes was once more one of the fastest in the field. The competition at the 6 Hour Race, however, was as tough as usual. This time, the strongest rival for Weiland-Racing.de turned out to be Land-Motorsport.
Decisive for the race was amongst others the penultimate pit stop when Kai Riemer was impeded at the pit access and had to proceed to another lap on the Grand Prix Circuit before he was able to come to the pits for refuelling and a driver’s change. He lost about 1:30 minutes due to this incident. “We simply had bad luck at the pit stop but we must admit that it would also have been very close without this loss of time”, said team manager Matthias Weiland who thus defends his driver, “Land Motorsport was just a bit faster this time which you simply have to accept. Next time, we will try again to be in the front.”
After deduction of the void results, Rodney Forbes is now into fourth overall position with a gap of 0.94 points. So there remains a chance on the Championship title.
The drivers of the two other Weiland-Porsche in contrast were much happier. The team mates of Matthias Weiland in the Snook-Porsche were Oleksiy Kikireshko and Andrii Lebed from Ukraine. The drivers were highly satisfied with place six in their class and 13th position overall. “We had a race without any problems and it is simply great to finish in the top 20 at the Six Hour Race with all our three cars”, said a happy Matthias Weiland.
Because the team’s third 997 GT3 Cup, too, finished the race without any difficulties. Stefan Müller, Michael Klein and the team manager finished into seventh place in the Cup class and in position 15 overall with the autoweiland.de-Porsche. “It is a pity of course that our fastest car missed the victory by such a close margin, but that’s motor sport”, said Matthias Weiland for whom the very consistent and strong team performance is more important and that his team is thus amongst the best Cup teams of the series.
Apart from four other race cars, the Flying-Horse Porsche was then selected by Race Control to undergo a routine technical post-event check. After the inspection, it was confirmed that the vehicle entered by Weiland-Racing.de complied with the Regulations in all details.
The big summer break in the VLN endurance racing championship has now started after the 6 Hours race. Drivers and teams may have a rest of eight weeks before the series will restart with the eighth round on 25th September. Weiland-Racing.de will be ready to continue and try to use their little chance to still gain the title.
