The recently created Team TinTag Racing had a very successful start in the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring and finished on the podium right at its first participation with the spectacular Ferrari 458 at the legendary Nordschleife. Christian Kohlhaas (Andernach/ Germany) and Alexander Mattschull (Bad Homburg/ Germany) finished second in class SP8 (VLN Specials over 4000 cc and up to 6250 cc).
“We are really delighted about this race result”, informs Danny Pfeil, the boss of the racing team with the Italian race car. “We had no technical problems with our Ferrari throughout the whole race over almost four hours. The red car from Maranello has perfectly passed its performance test in long-distance racing at the Green Hell. A big compliment goes to the drivers who have shown a fantastic performance under these extremely difficult conditions.” The race which was scheduled to run over the distance of four hours was stopped by Race Control with the red flag after an accident involving three cars when it had started to hail.
The new TinTag Ferrar team right away attracted a lot of attention in the paddocks. “The interest in our Ferrari here at the Ring was gigantic”, says Alexander Mattschull. “I enjoyed this once again live in particular during the slow-down lap. When our Ferrari arrives after the passage of 20 or 30 Porsche, all the fans around the track are enthusiastic and are waving. Well, the Ferrari is definitely an eye-catcher.”
Poor weather conditions prevailed in the Eifel region already after the start of the race. “That was really tricky”, says start driver Christian Kohlhaas. “It was partly almost impossible to see if the track was dry or wet. But we completed the race without an accident and without any technical problems.” Mattschull adds: “The conditions were extreme. I had not even two laps which were similar. This makes it very difficult to find your rhythm. I am very happy with the new car and the team. We can now proceed to work on the details in order to find more speed.”
For the coming races, the further development of the reliable Ferrari stands in the focus of the technical team staff of GT Corse which is based in Frankfurt. “As we have finished the first race right away without any problems and even achieved a place on the podium in our class, our next target will be to also move up in the overall classification. After the 33rd overall position at our debut, we should improve by at least five places at each round as I think that positions 15 to 20 should be possible with this car. Therefore, we will proceed to test a new tyre rim combination next week already. We hope this will improve our performance at the next VLN race.”
