At the sixth VLN endurance race and with place four in class SP7 and twelfth overall position, Weiland Racing was following up their performance shown in the fifth round. Two weeks ago, the team had competed with two cars in two classes and, after an excellent performance, finished into places two and three. It was in particular the professional driver Jeroen Bleekemolen from the Netherlands who demonstrated his potential. This time, the team around team manager Matthias Weiland had entered just one Porsche 977 GT3 Cup again and was happy to score another success for the team.
Even though the final fourth position in their class was one place behind their previous position, the driver duo Andreas Weiland and Bert Flossbach had again improved their performance. With a time of 8:41.990 minutes, Weiland completed his fastest lap at the Nordschleife. “I have never been that fast”, he said happily afterwards.
Weiland however feels that there is still a possibility to further improve. “We are still in the set-up stage but the car is getting better and better.” Only in the last laps, the driver duo had to struggle with some problems due to the tyres and some oil on the track. “Otherwise, we could perhaps have achieved third place in our class and hence eleventh position overall, but our result is absolutely perfect as it is.” This was finally the maximum the Weiland Porsche could achieve with the differences in performances in their class. Anyhow, there are definitely also smaller Cup cars fighting against big race cars, such as Porsche 997 GT3 RSR, in this class.
Concerning strategy, Weiland Racing was also doing everything right in this race. When it became clear that the top teams were trying to achieve a new lap record, the pit crew focused more on fuel. Furthermore, both of the drivers tried to save as much fuel as possible. “In such a case, you must try not to push too hard”, explained Bert Flossbach. Even if a rather cautious driving is a little slower, you save the short “splash-and-dash”, so a quick refuel stop at the pits.
“Everything well done and we deserved the success”, summarized team manager Matthias Weiland. He is hoping that he can give the same comment in tow weeks time. On 4th August, the highlight of the VLN season will take place with the 6 Hour Race and Weiland Racing will definitely not miss this race.
