Third victory in their third race. With this superb result, Mathol Racing can be highly pleased at the beginning of the summer break of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft. At the highlight of the season, the 6 Hours Race, there was once again no chance to beat the Aston Martin entered in class GT4 by the team. The only drop of bitterness however was that Rüdiger Schicht (Switzerland) had an accident with his Honda Civic early in the race and had to be brought to hospital for a short treatment.
Wolfgang Weber (Vilshofen/ Germany), Norbert Bermes (Willich/ Germany) and Rickard Nilsson (Balduinstein/ Germany) are currently on their way to a truly successful team. The three drivers in the Aston Martin Vantage V8 GT4 have so far been unbeaten in the VLN series and in the 24 Hour Race. And at the 6 Hour Race, too, none of the competitors was able to go the pace of the Mathol-Aston. It was Wolfgang Weber again who set the absolutely fastest lap time in the class. He achieved this fastest GT4 time of 9:11,337 minutes already in his second lap.
His two team mates nonetheless also showed an excellent performance on a very high level. Nilsson hereby had nevertheless a moment of shock when a Viper wanted to pass him at a very narrow section. Instead of waiting a second to overtake after the narrow corner, the Viper was braking into the Aston Martin and forced its way past at the inside. The consequence: Nilsson had to fight hard to keep the race car on the track and there was quite a big hole and a huge dent in the left door, in addition to some skid marks. “That was totally unnecessary”, said an angry Nilsson after his stint, although he was happy that the damage on the car was not even bigger.
A clearly bigger damage in contrast reported Rüdiger Schicht. He went off the track at the section Metzgefeld, lost control of his car and had a high-speed crash into the guardrails. His Honda Civic which should also have been driven by his team mate Jörg Kittelmann (Heppenheim/ Germany) was badly damaged after this incident and Schicht in addition suffered some thorax problems. “I would suppose that it will take about six weeks until he will have recovered from the accident. After a short treatment in hospital, he was however able to get back home”, informed team manager Matthias Holle. Jörg Kittelmann this time had to be satisfied with some practice laps.
The extend of the damage on the Honda will be determined during the next days in the workshop of Mathol Racing. “We can now take our time for a thorough repair”, was the comment of the team manager as the VLN will now start in its eight weeks summer break. The eighth and next round is scheduled for 25th of September. Weber/ Bermes/ Nilsson will then take all efforts to further develop their predominance in class GT4. And the Honda Civic, too, should be ready to race again.
