Anyone passing by the pits of Kissling Motorsport at the season final of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring was able to improve his language skills in Finnish: In addition to the regular drivers Hannu Luostarinen and Julius Nieminen, who were again fighting together with Volker Strycek for the lead in class SP3T, a second race car with Finnish drivers was at the start.
For the last race of the year, Kissling Motorsport had entered three Opel Astra OPC in class SP3T as well as a Corvette C6.SP newly designed in the colours of AVA Cooling.
Whilst the Corvette attracted a lot of attention with top lap times already during the Friday practice session, the team of Michael Funke and Duncan Huisman lacked the necessary bit of luck in the race. In the formation lap already, the power steering failed and the US race car had to stop the race a few laps further on due to the big steering problems – and this after all the efforts taken by the whole team during a repair which had become necessary after a crash in the RCN (circuit challenge Nürburgring) race.
The race was running quite differently for the three Opel Astra which had all started in class SP3T. The Finnish newcomers at the Nordschleife Jari Nuoramo, Anssi Okkonen and Ilkka Kariste exercised due car in the practice as well as in the race and finished the race over the four hours distance happily and without any damage on the car into tenth class position, to the complete satisfaction of team manager Stefan Kissling.
“Whenever we can help new drivers to get familiar with the special difficulties and demands at the Nordschleife and the information in our briefings are applied as in the present case, I am always very happy. In this way, we can slowly introduce the particularities of the Nürburgring and of the endurance racing series to the drivers and bring new drivers closer to the VLN.”
Heinz-Otto and Jürgen Fritzsche, the fastest twins in the VLN field, did not have that much luck. They had to struggle heavily with the tyres which spoiled their fight about the lead in the class. Due to two unscheduled tyre changes, the most successful duo in the VLN this time had to be satisfied with a sixth position in their class.
So the second Astra driven by the two Finns Hannu Luostarinen and Julius Nieminen as well as Volker Strycek was the hottest iron in the fire for Kissling Motorsport at the last race weekend of the 2010 season.
Whilst the practice time of 8:56,311 minutes represented the fastest lap time of the year for Kissling, there was another car in the race which was able to go the pace of the fast Opel. A Norwegian team, of all teams, in an Audi TT finally dominated over the Kissling team. Thus the win in class SP3T was completely fought out amongst Nordic drivers – apart from Volker Strycek. Even though Luostarinen, Nieminen and Strycek finally finished with a gap of two minutes behind the class winners, the team was happy with the result. “We had unusual problems with the tyres on both Astra race cars and must hence be quite happy with our second place. I am particularly sorry for the Fritzsche brothers, they would have deserved a win, too”, said Stefan Kissling.
During their subsequent party at the city of Schuld near the Nürburgring, the team then reviewed the whole season again. In addition to the VLN class wins and RCN (circuit challenge Nürburgring) overall victories, the very good result of the OPC Race Camp cars at the 24h Race was a particular highlight of the season.
As the end of the season at the same time marks the start of the preparations for next year, the plans for 2011 are of course already underway in the team of Kissling Motorsport.
