Aston Martin finished the third round of the VLN endurance racing championship at the Nürburgring with the top three positions on the podium: The Aston Martin Vantage GT4 entered by the Team Mathol Racing in class SP10 finished the 56th ADAC ACAS H&R-Cup as superior winners in their class. A good reason to celebrate had also Marcus Mahy (Guernsey), Liam Talbot (Australia) and Wolfgang Schuhbauer (Brilon/ Germany). The driver trio finished the race over four hours with their Aston Martin V12 Vantage into second place in class SP8. “A fantastic result”, said Talbot regarding the result of start number 144 and thus completing his preparations for his first participation in the 24h Race this year with another good VLN result at this third round of the VLN series. The successful race weekend at the Nürburgring was completed by the Aston Martin Vantage GT4 with start number 179, finishing third in class SP10.
The team of ‘Woody’ which is the nice nickname for the blue V12 Vantage S had already been happy with the result in the timed practice. “There was a lot of traffic at the Nordschleife. To set a really fast time under these conditions is not that easy”, was Mahy’s summary on the practice session. The Aston Martin Vantage V12 was doing better and better in the race and the team was finally rewarded with a second place in their class. “A second place in this extremely competitive class is almost unbelievable”, said Schuhbauer happily. “We have taken some risks in the choice of our tyres which unfortunately did not prove to be the best one – had we taken the other option, who knows? This result represents a fantastic motivation for the whole team facing the 24h Race in June.”
However, the team of the Aston Martin Test Centre also had to note a retirement in the timed practice of the morning. Richard Meaden (Great Britain) and Chris Harris (Great Britain) had already set a fast practice lap in class SP10 with their start number 187 before they were stopped due to an accident.
After starting from position 15, which they had achieved in the timed practice, the third race of the season found a sudden end for Stuart Leonard (Great Britain) and Paul Wilson (Great Britain) in lap 17. When Leonard tried to overtake a competitor with his Aston Martin Vantage GT3 at the ‘Döttinger Höhe’, he crashed into the side of another car. “I was in the slipstream of the Porsche. There was a gap on his right side which I wanted to use and changed the line to overtake. All of a sudden the gap became small and smaller and then the unfortunate accident occurred.” Up to that moment, the driver duo was shown in a top 10 position. “We have applied a few modifications in the set-up which have proved to be successful”, said Leonard. “The car feels really great.”
Two Aston Martin customer teams finished the race successfully in class GT4. The experienced driver trio Norbert Bermes (Krefeld/ Germany), Wolfgang Weber (Vilshofen7 Germany) and Hendrik Still (Schalkenbach/ Germany) crossed the finish line after 25 race laps on the 24.358 kilometres long combination of the Nürburgring short version and the Nordschleife in the V8 Vantage of the Team Mathol Racing with an advance of almost 8 minutes ahead of the second-placed team. They celebrated the first class win for an Aston Martin in the VLN season 2014 in a superior manner. Into third place in class GT4 followed Dmitriy Lukovnikov (Russia), Andrei Sidorenko (Rosengarten/ Germany) and Michael Heimrich (Oberursel/ Germany) in the Aston Martin entered by the MSC Adenau e.V. im ADAC. Thomas Heinrich (Ladenburg/ Germany) and Scott Preacher (Rothenburg o.d.T/ Germany) in the Vantage of the STADAvita Racing Teams completed the good result for the make.
