The title in the Opel Astra OPC Cup in its first year of organisation goes to the Team Bonk Motorsport. With a win in class Cup 1 at the final of the VLN endurance racing championship season at the Nürburgring, Mario Merten (Kelberg/ Germany) and Jürgen Nett (Mayen/ Germany) secured the title for the team from Münster, Westphalia. “It had been our target right from the beginning to fight for the championship. After the tragic death of my team mate Wolf Silvester at the third round, it was however not easy for us to find back to the right rhythm. It is of course fantastic that we finally nevertheless succeeded”, said a more than happy Mario Merten after the finish. “With the fantastic support of Jürgen, we dedicated all our participations to Wolf.” All the dreams of title ambitions in the team of Jannik Olivo and Elmar Jurek (both from Berlin) went up in smoke about 75 minutes before the race end: After an accident, the Astra with start number 357 came to the pits with technical problems and had to retire. Up to that moment, the team from Berlin had been in the lead of the race with the small advance of one second. Jurek and Olivo in the Cup Astra of the team TKS Motorsport finished the first season of the Opel make cup into second position behind Bonk Motorsport.
Jürgen Nett had contributed to quite an important extend to the title win of Bonk Motorsport and Mario Merten, who had scored the total of 188 points in the nine races. “It was really great fun to support Mario and the Team Bonk on their way to winning the title. I was very well received by them and right away felt myself at home. The Opel Astra OPC Cup also handled very nicely right from the beginning and I was immediately able to go the pace of the leaders”, says Nett who celebrated his 72nd class win in the VLN.
Even though the disappointment about the lost championship is quite big, Olivo and Jurek took their ‘defeat’ in a sportive manner. “At the start of the season, nobody knew where the journey would take us. And to take the vice-championship considering this strong grid and the extremely high competition on the track, is quite ok”, said Olivo. His team mate Jurek added: “Mario had always been fast, some times faster than we. We suffered a bit of bad luck in the end and Mario has deserved the championship.” Due to their retirement, they did not collect any further championship points and their gap finally was 29 points.
Into second place finished Thorsten Wolter (Berlin) and Michael Brüggenkamp (Gersheim/ Germany) in the Cup-Astra with start number 344 the last race of the season. Thorsten Wolter: „We are delighted about our second place in this final round. We’ve had a lot of bad luck throughout the season.” His team mate Wolter adds: “That was our first complete season in the VLN series. We can hence be happy with our results scored in those races in which we took the chequered flag. We missed third championship position by one point and finally are fourth.”
Maximilian Hackländer (Rüthen/ Germany), Daniela Schmid (Austria) and Christian Gebhardt (Stuttgart/ Germany) completed the top three at the VLN final and the driver trio in the Cup-Astra of Düchtling Motorsport thus also secured third place in the championship. Their score of 147.5 points is just one more than the team in fourth place, Wolter / Brüggenkamp. “The race was full of suspense till the end. Due to some problems at a refuel stop we lost almost 40 seconds. We are happy that we have achieved our target to finish the season in the top three. I think we could perhaps also have been involved in the battle for the title if thing had been going a little better. Anyhow, a third place is fine considering the strong grid.”
The total of 18 Cup-Astra participated in the ‚Green Hell’ on the average at each event of the Opel make cup which made its debut in 2013. The victories in the nine rounds of the season were shared amongst four teams and the most successful driver in these statistical figures again was Mario Merten with five wins. The most successful female driver in the overall classification of the VLN endurance racing championship was Daniele Schmid who finished tenth.
“Congratulations to Bonk Motorsport and Mario Merten to their win in the Opel Astra OPC Cup championship”, says Jürgen Schrott, Opel Motorsport Director. “We have seen an extremely exciting first championship season. The fact that the battle for the championship had been open until the final round demonstrates how competitive the action within the Cup was. A big thank you to all the drivers and teams for joining us in this first season.” The planning for the 2014 season is already under way. Based on the experience gained this year, we will further develop the excellent technical basis of the Astra OPC and we wish to enhance the attractiveness of the Cup with six additional cars.”
