Saturday, 12th April 2014: Dramatic moments at the second round of the season in the endurance racing championship at the Nürburgring (VLN) during which, amongst other series, also the TMG GT86 Cup. 49 minutes after the start of the 39th DMV 4 Hour Race, the red flag came out after a serious accident in the section Pflanzgarten which fortunately had no serious consequences for the involved drivers of a VW Scirocco and of a Porsche. It was only a four hours break in which about 80 metres of the track barriers had to be repaired that the restart was finally given at 16:48hrs.
Like in many other classes, this resulted in an extra excitement also in the TMG GT86 Cup as the final race result was established by adding the two parts of the race. The happy winner finally was the team of Dörr Motorsport in the TMG GT 86 CS-V3 with start number 534 and their drivers Maciej Dreszer (PL), Arne Hoffmeister (D) as well as Fabian Wrabetz (D).
When the race was stopped, the team around team manager Uwe Isert had already been in the lead. Even though the team of Leutheuser Racing&Events which had a really successful start of the season at the beginning of April won the second part of the race, with the aggregate times Dörr Motorsport was able to maintain their lead to the finish. As the minimum driving time of 160 minutes as provided for in the VLN Regulations for a 4 Hour Race was exceeded, full points were awarded for this second round despite the suspension of the race.
“We were very surprised in the end but of course also very happy that we won”, said Arne Hoffmeister. “We did not even know how much advance we had gained in the first part and were thus not sure whether our second place in the second part of the race was sufficient for the overall win. So we were really very happy when it was clear that we were first.” By a small margin followed the Toyota Swiss Racing Team in second place of the day classification. The top three were completed by the team of Leutheuser Racing&Events.
The Toyota Team Thailand, supported by Leipert Motorsport, had their first start in the TMG GT86 Cup and made a strong debut at the Nordschleife. The drivers Nattavude Charoensukhawatana, Nattapong Hortongkam and Smittachartch Suttipong got familiar with the conditions in the demanding and challenging ‘Green Hell’ very quickly, they made no mistakes and finished in eighth place in their class. This was the first time ever that a team from Thailand was at the start of a VLN race.
Nico Ehlert, Principal Engineer Customer Motosport: „The close result in the Cup classification at the second round of the TMG GT 86 Cup again demonstrates the high level of performance in our make cup. Today, the excitement lasted even beyond the finish of the race as we saw the winner only after the addition of the times out of the two parts of the race. The accident which resulted in the suspension of the race again showed that there always remains some kind of risk, despite all the efforts around safety on which we, too, focus a lot on the development of our race cars. So today’s best news is that both drivers are fine according to the circumstances.”
