2010 was one of the best years in the history of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring. The success of this most popular endurance racing series in Europe is reflected in impressive figures.
The tightest finish after a race distance of four hours was definitely the gap of only 0.240 seconds at the 41st Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken race. The gaps in practice had also been lower than ever. The top ten cars at the 52nd ADAC ACAS H&R-Cup race were separated by not more than 7.076 seconds.
After the number of participants during the period of the financial and economic crisis had gone down, the boom has now also arrived back at the endurance racing series. The number of 185 cars in the average participated in the practice sessions and the average of 177 cars took the start at the ten races of the season. The 35th DMV 4-Hour-Race scored the top figure with 201 starters. The popularity amongst the participants is most clearly represented in the number of entries submitted which came to 191 in the average. The number was however reduced due to technical failures and accidents at the test and set-up sessions on the Friday before each round.
The endurance racing championship stands for a great diversity. Cars from not less than 28 different car manufacturers competed in the races: Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Citroen, Corvette, Dodge, Ferrari, Fiat, Ford, Ginetta, Honda, Lexus, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mini, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Opel, Peugeot, Porsche, Renault, Seat, Subaru, Suzuki, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo. The field of drivers is just as impressive. 1.171 drivers of 36 different nationalities were at the start: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and Ukraine.
One of the very few values which have gone down compared to last year is the average speed in the races. The winners of the 33rd RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen achieved an average of 168.683 km/h, whereas the average in 2009 was still 176.385 km/h. The reduction in speed due to the ‘Balance of Performance’ applied by the VLN and 24h Technical Commission has thus proved to be successful.
