The Team Lubner Motorsport celebrated a double win in the Cup1 class at the third VLN race of the year 2015 – Robert Schröder, Marcel Hartl and Roger Vögeli took the chequered flag at the 57th ADAC ACAS H&R-Cup into first place. They were followed by Juha Hannonen, Jari Nuoramo and Daniel Bohr who secured second position ahead of Sepo Hunt, Ilkka Kariste and Uwe Unteroberdörster of the Team Ti-Tarvike-Racing. The decision in the fight for the victory was preceded by a race with exciting battles over a duration of four hours.
It was not an easy weekend for the favourites in the Opel Astra OPC Cup at this third round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring. Alexander Schula in the race car with start number 339 was the first in the Astra pack to start the race but had to work hard in this position for many laps in order to resist the attacks of Mario Merten in the Bonk-Opel. The lead changed several times between these two, their fight was one of the most exciting in the whole field. Then Merten suffered a tyre blowout at the Querspange, he had to return to the pits in his Astra with start number 350 and dropped back into fifth position. Schula, however, was not able to enjoy his lead for a long time: “I stopped at the Döttinger Höhe in my ninth lap with a problem in the fuel supply. However, the previous fight with Mario was really great fun. We have lost about five minutes since the car had to be recovered to the pits but we do not give up yet. A chicken is fighting until it ends up on the grill”, jokes Schula who is competing for the Team Kappeler Motorsport together with his team mate Willy Hüppi.
Until the top two drivers encountered the problems, the cars of Schröder, Hartl, Vögeli and Luostarinen, Fritzsche, Fritzsche had been fighting for third position. But the team of Ti-Tarvike-Racing, too, which had come to the Eifel track as leaders in the championship, suffered some bad luck. “I observed the drivers ahead of me for a while and now slowly wanted to start overtaking them. Then I was not able to engage the gear when braking at the Hatzenbach section. We had to continue for a while without first and second gears since the shifter cable had come off. We lost another two laps due to the repair”, said Jürgen Fritzsche, thus explaining the reason why all of a sudden he dropped back so far in the Astra with start number 353. But as bad luck rarely comes unaccompanied, the Fritzsche brothers had to abandon all hopes for a good result a little later. In the stint driven by Heinz-Otto, a flat tyre damaged parts of the front car and he was compelled to come to another stop for repair. The title defenders finally finished in tenth position only.
The car with number 350, too, then suffered a second problem. With Jürgen Nett behind the steering wheel, the car crashed into the guardrails in lap twelve in the approach of the Schwalbenschwanz section due to another flat tyre. The car was so badly damaged that he could not resume the race. Now, as the three fastest teams of the last race did no longer have a chance to finish in the top positions, it was clear that there would be new faces on the podium of the Astra OPC Cup at the third VLN race of the season 2015. The light was now green for the cars of the Team Lubner Motorsport which had a trouble-free race and thus finished in first and second positions in their class, with the drivers in the car with number 344, Schröder, Hartl and Vögeli being quickest.
“The starting phase was particularly turbulent, there were a lot of close fights. But that is what characterises the Astra-Cup in my opinion – all the hard and tough battles are carried out in a fair way. The atmosphere amongst the drivers is really fantastic”, was the summary of Schröder. “We were temporarily fighting against the Fritzsche brothers about third position. When they then got into trouble just like the other teams ahead of us, the light was green for us. The key to our success this weekend was consistency in our race without making any mistakes or encountering any problems”.
With a gap of 53 seconds behind, Juha Hannonen, Jari Nuoramo and Daniel Bohr finished second in the Cup class in the other Lubner-Astra. The top three were completed by start number 352 so that the Team Ti-Tarvike-Racing was at least partly compensated for the problems in the sister car. “I started the race from ninth grid position and then I was unfortunately slightly delayed in the traffic of the first two laps. Everything was going well then from third lap. When I came to the driver change in lap eight, I was in third position and my two Finnish team mates were able to defend this position until the finish”, said Uwe Unteroberdörster happily together with his Scandinavian colleagues.
There are significant changes in the championship standings due to these race results. The leaders are now the race winners Schröder, Hartl and Vögeli, closely followed by the Fritzsche twins who in fact had to give up their lead but, gaining eleven points, were at least able to secure second position. The third in the race classification, Hunt, Kariste and Unteroberdörster, are now also in third place in the championship.
One group is celebrating an excellent party, another is licking its wounds, but today’s unlucky fellows do not have to wait long for the time for revenge. In only two weeks’ time, the engines will be started again at the Eifel track for the fourth VLN race. The fight in the Opel Astra OPC Cup about points and cups will then also continue.
