It was for the first time in this last race of the current endurance racing championship season, the 35th DMV Münsterlandpokal, that a race car with a 1.6 litres turbo engine remained under the magical 9 minute mark at the 24.369 kilometres long combination of the Nürburgring short connection and the Nordschleife. So the Schirra-MINI is the first car with a cylinder capacity of less than 1.6 litres breaking this mark and joining the small group of GT cars which have so far successfully succeeded in doing so. Team manager Joachim Schirra: “It was a very particular challenge for us to remain under nine minutes with our 1.6 litres car. Our success in doing so today is the result of the constant development work of the whole team throughout the last years.”
Schirra driver Markus Oestreich, former DTM driver and European truck champion, achieved the dream time of 8:58.451 minutes in the sixth race lap. Oestreich: “The conditions today had been very good and the MINI was running perfectly. We are very proud that we achieved such a top time overall with such a small car.”
Schirra Motoring competed in this year’s endurance racing series with four MINI race cars in class SP2T. The two 1.6 litres MINIs specially prepared for endurance races and driven by Friedrich von Bohlen, Markus Oestreich and Harald Grohs turned out to be the superior cars in their class and were also able to compete in the top 15 overall.
