The highlight of the VLN endurance racing championship season at the Nürburgring is without any doubt the 6h ADAC Ruhr-Pokal-Rennen. The drivers as well as the material are hereby put to an extremely hard test. The team of TKS Motorsport passed this test and have now gone in the lead of the VLN series.
More than 160 cars took the start to the qualifying session on Saturday morning under wonderful weather in the Eifel region. The most successful Renault Clio was driven by the crew of Wolf and DiMartino who started the 6h Race from third row on the grid in the third starting group and as first of the 20 participating race cars of the French manufacturer. Only two rows further down followed the at this time leaders in the CUP3 classification Olivo and Jurek of the team TKS as first car of the pursuers. The fastest participant in the special classification of the Clio Cup Speed Trophy then was G-A-T Sport in 16th position out of the total of 54 starters in this group. The winner in the Speed Trophy classification of the previous round, the Groneck brothers, had to start from the pit lane after they had an accident in qualifying and were not able to repair the car in less than three hours.
But after one third of the total race duration already (in this case after 12 laps) the spectators saw a totally different order in the field. In the lead of the Renault Clio were Olivo and Jurek, only 40 seconds ahead of Rennsemmel/ Peter/ Botor. The fastest in qualifying of the Speed Trophy special classification of G-A-T Sport, too, had lost a lot and had to let the race car of ATM-Motorsport driven by Meiswinkel/ Ernst/ Baratella pass. In the second part of the race, G-A-T even lost their second place in the special classification but succeeded in moving back again before the six hours had elapsed. Meanwhile Olivo and Jurek moved away in the lead and took the chequered flag at the end of the race with an advance of more than two laps and thus secured their first place in the VLN overall classification of the 2012 season. Within a few minutes only the first participants of the Clio Cup Speed Trophy crossed the Line. The trio with ATM-Motorsport in the lead and followed by G-A-T-Sport and Frei/Raab/Lohmer then crossed the finish line. The performance of the Groneck brothers was hereby particularly striking as they had to take the start from the pit lane and missed the third place by a few seconds only.
