The drivers of the team PROsport Porsche Cayman SP6 were really happy to climb up onto the top of the podium for the third time in a row now. Apart from their brilliant third win in class SP6, the racing team from Herschbroich/ Germany enjoyed a second place in class V6 for production cars and another result on the podium.
“We have never expected that at the beginning of the season. We were sure that our work would pay out but to win the first three races right away – that is much more than we would have expected”, said PROsport team manager Christoph Esser happily.
In the morning qualifying already, the SP6-Cayman (start number 204) went into the lead of the class in setting a lap time of 9:09:791 minutes. After a slight collision with another competitor in the traffic after the start, the driver trio made up of Marko Stipp (Herford/ Germany), Moritz Kranz (Wimbach/ Germany) and Matthias Luger (Weiding/ Germany) was fighting in the lead of the field over the whole race distance, despite the damaged bumper. “Even though the aerodynamic is not perfect any longer, the technical components in the inside are not affected by the incident. The Cayman seems to be very tough and reliable and its handling is still absolutely perfect”, informed start driver on the situation. His impression should prove to be correct throughout the following three race hours as the PROsport Cayman supported by PZ Willich was dominating the action this weekend again. After 24 race laps, the drivers took the chequered flag with the superior advance of 3:42 in their class.
After some protests and the subsequent suspension of the classifications in VLN races 1 and 2, PROsport Performance started the third race of the season with the Porsche Carrera 991. The driver duo around Jörg Viebahn and Adam Christodoulou, having scored the victory in last year’s GT4 European Championship (AM), has already been a very successful team that wanted to take up the challenge this year in the highly competitive class V6. After a long battle about the lead, the German British crew finally had to be satisfied with second place and just missed the win with the small gap of only 8.524 seconds behind the winners amongst the 15 competitors in this class. “We had been terrifically strong on the track and are clearly in the lead in the addition of the lap times, but for some strange reasons we have lost too much time to some competitors in our in and out laps after the refuel stops. It is a mystery for us and we don’t have an answer yet but we will definitely investigate on this issue”, said team manager Christian Dietrich. “Our 991 with the Pirelli slicks obviously sets the standard in class V6. And we still have some items on our agenda to improve”, said team principle Chris Esser without being demoralised about their second place. “This is the winner’s curse: We have already achieved so many results on the podium in the three VLN races of the current season that, after finishing second, the question automatically arises why we did not finish first. I hope that we will be able to maintain this fantastic performance through the whole year.”
The third car in the team, the former Cup Porsche which was converted according to the regulations to compete in class SP10 was this weekend driven by Dominik Schöning (Wülfrath/ Germany), the “old hand” Heinz-Josef Bermes (Willich/ Germany) and Andreas Patzelt (Troisdorf/ Germany). Setting second fastest lap time, this crew, too, was close to finishing on the podium. An illegal overtaking manoeuvre, however, in a very close flag sector and the subsequent penalty made them dropping back into a final sixth place.
