At the fourth round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring, the team Peugeot RCZ Nokia clearly dominated the class of Diesel driven cars from start to finish. Michael Bohrer, Stéphane Caillet and Jürgen Nett hereby scored their second win in the current season. The trio in the white Peugeot RCZ 2.0 HDi FAP was for the first time supported by Bruce Jouanny. After an accident in the qualifying, the sister car for which, in addition to Jouanny, the drivers Cyrus Ayari, Olivier Perez and Jonathan Cochet were entered was not able to start the race.
Bohrer explained the key to their repeated success: “A lot of rookies had been at the start here today and there was an according number of accidents and quite tricky situations to master. It was of utmost importance to back off in all the fights in the traffic and to keep cool.” Start driver Nett had set the basis for their result and went into the lead of their class right after the first metres. “Once again our team has done a brilliant job. The race was really great fun, also considering the crowd around the track and the nice weather.” With a superb advance, Bohrer, Caillet and Nett continue to be the best team in the championship driving a Diesel car and are shown into 18th overall position amongst more than 800 participants.
The continuous further development in the Team Peugeot RCZ Nokia has paid out again. “The new dashboard for example is about ten kilograms less in weight”, said Caillet. But before the Frenchman was able to start qualifying, the session was stopped due to accidents. Before the red flag came out, Bohrer and Nett had already demonstrated the potential of the dynamic sports coupe in setting lap times of 9:51.887 minutes and 9:52.467 minutes respectively. Bohrer: “From race to race, we have every time improved by a few seconds – a big compliment to my team.”
Within a few hours only Jouanny experienced how close good luck and bad luck may be together. Straightaway at his first start at the most challenging race track of the world, the Frenchman was able to celebrate a class win. In the qualifying on the same morning in contrast, he had an accident with the black RCZ 2.0 HDi FAP in the section ‚Brünnchen’. “A competitor hit me at the rear right side and forced me off onto the grass“, explained Jouanny who lives in Paris, France. “I lost control and crashed into the guardrails head-on.” It turned out to be impossible to consider a start of the race. “The damages were simply too heavy”, said team manager Timo Frings.
