The racing team of Bonk motorsport based in Münster/ Germany has entered a smaller team for the first race of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring to take place this Saturday. The current champions team will compete at the Nürburgring Nordschleife with „only“ four cars. “We have scheduled to enter one of the GT4-BMW from the second round only and one of the two BMW 320Si is currently still giving us a little of a headache which we will try to solve after the start of the season”, says Michael Bonk. The team manager has a lot of other things still to do until the start signal of the first round will be given on Saturday.
Bonk was however able to present an interesting newcomer for the series. Tim Mullen from Ireland will support the duo of Arvid Steinberg and Peter Bonk in the Porsche 997 GT3. The British GT Champion of the year 2006 had competed in the FIA GT and in the Le Mans series during the last years. He completed his first kilometres at the Nürburgring Nordschleife last Saturday during the official VLN test session. “Tim was very competitive, even though both car and track were completely new for him”, said Michael Bonk who was very impressed by the performance of the Irishman.
Due to the new driver who has joined the team, Michael Bonk himself will probably not compete in the races, not even on one of the two BMW 320Si. He had thought about joining Alexander Mies in the team but then dismissed the idea again. “The BMW has a problem in the electronic system.” The control unit does not give the signal to the fuel pump to actually pump. “I assume it is nothing serious but we simply have no time currently to check as we are too busy with the other cars”, admits Bonk. Alexander Mies will hence join the team of Axel Burghardt and Jens Moetfindt in the second 320Si.
The BMW M3 GT4 will probably be driven by Henry Walkenhorst alone in the 4 hour race. “There are two drivers who have tested the car last weekend already but it has so far not yet been decided whether they will also compete on Saturday”, says Bonk who does not really care whether the GT4 will be driven by one or three drivers.
Last but not least, the current champions Wolf Silvester and Mario Merten have of course been entered in their champion car, the BMW Z4. It is not the first time for the duo to compete with start number one at the Eifel circuit. As far as they are concerned, this should not change for next season, too – but for the time being they first have to master ten exciting VLN races successfully.
