The team LMS Engineering around Andreas Lautner finished the 6 Hour Race with a second successive one-two victory in the highly competitive class SP3T for two litre turbo engines. The race was characterized by rain and permanently changing weather conditions. In contrast to the sixth VLN race three weeks ago, this time it was the Audi TTRS2 with start number 303 and driven by Krognes, Wieninger, Niederberger and Andree that was in front of the sister car with number 302 and drivers Schmid, Botor and \’Tiger\’.
So finally the Audi TTRS chassis acquired by LMS Engineering at the beginning of the season and fitted with the five cylinder engine developed by the team itself has now scored its first victory. ‘Rosi’ which is the team internal name of the chassis simply did not have the same luck as ‘Susi’ had in the previous races of the season. “The car was quick and reliable but due to uncontrollable incidents such as stopping of the race at moments which were not very favourable for our team the maximum we had been able to achieve was a second place,” was the summary of team manager Lautner regarding the current season so far.
The turnaround came at the highlight of the season, the ADAC & Hour Race. In the timed practice already, the team from the Westerwald region demonstrated their ambition to win the race in setting fastest times in class SP3T by cars number 302 and 303. They were separated by three seconds only and occupied the two positions on the first row of the grid. After the start signal, start drivers ‘C. Tiger’ and 2012 VLN champion Krognes also entered the Mercedes Arena in first positions. Some corners further on, Kronges passed his team mate, the latter deliberately proceeding with care in this first part of the race. He joined the Nordschleife in sixth position. There was an exciting fight going on about the lead in this first stint on a still dry circuit. “The top three came to the pits after their first turn within a few seconds only,” sait Lautner. “We also knew at this point that it would start to rain but the track was still dry. So we fitted slicks again on car number 303 now driven by Stefan Wieninger, just as for Daniela Schmid in car 302.”
Four laps later, Wieninger then informed about heavy rain showers but had to continue on the slick tyres on the wet track for another lap whilst the direct competitors in the Moller Bil Audi came to the pits one lap earlier to change to intermediates. The experienced VLN Champion of the year 2012 Ulli Andree, hoping for changing conditions before the race, started to the third turn on Dunlop intermediates and started bit by bit to close up the about 90 second gap to the leading Moller Bil-Audi TTRS. “It was first of all raining in Ulli’s stint, then the racing line on the track was almost completely drying. We nevertheless agreed that Ulli should not change to slick tyres, in contrast to the other competitors,” explained Lautner their cool racing strategy which turned out to be completely right when a heavy rain shower caused the flooding of the Nürburgring track. Andree who was meanwhile in the lead with car 303 was able to continue his stint with the intermediates. And Schmid in the LMS-Audi TTRS2 with number 302, which was meanwhile also fitted with intermediates, exercised a lot of pressure on the second placed Moller Bil-TTRS.
Despite a faultless drive, both LMS drivers, however, had to accept that despite the intermediates their car was just floating in the heavy rain coming down in the Eifel. “For safety reasons, we ordered both cars back to the pits. Georg Niederberger took over the steering wheel in car 303 with an advance of meanwhile more than six minutes and he as well as Roland Botor in car 302 rejoined the race on rain tyres,” said Lautner. Both drivers did a perfect job which was definitely not easy today and thus delivered the car to the final drivers Krognes and Schmid almost one hour before the race end. “We relied on intermediate again as, according to our information, it would start to rain again shortly before the race end,” explained Latuner. “Unfortunately, the rain came one lap too late. We could otherwise have finished in an even better overall position but that is secondary now. We have achieved a fantastic one-two win which we owe to the right strategy, a brilliant team work and the outstanding performance of the drivers on a very high level. And with overall positions seven and eight amongst 193 starters, there is definitely no need for us to hide away with a two litres car.”
