Jana Meiswinkel (Wilnsdorf/ Germany) and Ernst Berg (Prüm/ Germany) finished the eighth VLN race into ninth position with their Renault Clio „Jacques“. Jana Meiswinkel managed to join the „U-10-Club“ and Jacques himself remains in the top 5 of the Renault Sport Speed Trophy!
The Indian summer in the Eifel region provided somehow untypical weather at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Flashback: Four weeks before, when the Team ATM-Motorsport for the first time in the current season finished on the podium at the 6h race, the weather was much more unstable, in other words much wetter and very unsettled. This time, the conditions were perfect at the eighth round and in the timed practice session already Ernst Berg managed to use these conditions perfectly. With a time of just below ten minutes for the 24.369 kilometres long track, the team’s red Renault Clio, called “Jacques”, was within reach of the top 10 in the Clio class which again figured the high number of 26 cars.
Just as in the previous seven races, Berg started the race and got quickly involved in some close fights which is typical for the Clio Cup class. This was not without consequences: “In the first corner already, a competitor hit my rear wheel and my steering wheel adjusted to almost three o’clock. But it was not a problem to continue racing”, informed the start driver after his turn.
After the first half of the race distance and without any further problem, Jana Meiswinkel took over the steering wheel and was instructed to increase her pace a little about one hour before the race end as their ninth position was endangered by a competitor behind. It was not necessary to ask the 24 years old race driver from the region of Siegen/ Germany twice and despite the damaged car she completed their fastest lap times in the race. After one lap at 10:00.854 minutes and two other times around 10:01 minutes, she nevertheless asked herself: “Why always me?”, as the first VLN lap time of less than ten minutes was within reach. The tension was released in lap 23 with the time of 9:58.870!! “I was shouting with joy in the car as finally I also managed to set a time of below ten minutes”, said Jana Meiswinkel. “Jana has really shown a brilliant performance”, confirmed Ernst Berg who was also happy that they were able to keep their ninth place.
Team manager Werner Meiswinkel added: “That was exactly according to schedule, we absolutely wanted to finish in eighth to tenth place. This is what we did, a big thank you to the whole team, everybody has done a fantastic job, my compliments!” And the damaged rear suspension will not cause a headache either: “The spare parts are already on stand-by, that is not a big thing”, said technical director Ferdinand Baratella.
The team will thus be able to continue fighting to defend their current fifth place in the Renault Sport Speed Trophy at the ninth round. This penultimate race of the season will take place on 15th October.
