Georg Weiss, Jochen Krumbach and Oliver Kainz started the fifth VLN round in their Wochenspiegel-Porsche 911 GT3 RSR with a sensation. In the elite field made up of 148 competition touring cars and GT race cars, they gained third grid position with a time of 8:12.229 minutes and with a gap of only 4.277 seconds behind the pole setter Uwe Alzen and Dominik Schwager in a Ford GT. After the end of the 90 minutes practice session, they however discovered that the gearbox in the black-white-red RSR had to be replaced. It was not possible to complete the quick repair until the pit lane was closed so that the Porsche had to take the start from the pit lane. The consequence was a 60 seconds time penalty that was added to the total driving time. Despite this package, the driver trio was racing with the same passion as usual and closed up to the top group quite soon.
One of the new members in the Team Manthey Racing, which comprised five race cars this time, did in contrast not even have the chance to proceed up to the start line. Heinz Schmersal, entered in the fourth Manthey-911 GT3 Cup-MR in category SP7 together with Thomas Schmid and Tim Scheerbarth, had a collision with a Ferrari driver a few metres in front of the start line and went off into the gravel quite spectacularly. Before the blue-white newcomer in the Manthey team could be recovered from its awkward situation to finally start the race, the following second and third starting groups first of all had to be started to the four hour race under “Code 60” regulations. It was only thereafter that the blue-white, apparently very robust Schmersal-Porsche could join the race. The drivers who made their debut in the team should nevertheless make it to the finish under the bright blue sky in the Eifel.
Whilst the Manthey-Wochenspiegel-RSR went into the lead for a short while due to the different and individual strategies around refuelling stops, another Manthey Porsche was gaining ground, the green-white nine-eleven GT3 Cup-MR with regular driver Christoph Breuer from Nettersheim/ Germany this time joined by Le-Mans winner Nick Tandy. They were classified ninth in the practice. Tandy hereby had changed the cockpit of the Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 with the one of the Porsche 911 of similar brand. After four hours, nine minutes and 47 seconds total driving time, Tandy and his team mate from the Eifel region crossed the finish line in fifth overall position, as winners in SP7 category and as best Porsche team.
In purely arithmetical terms, which means without the time penalty applied at the beginning of the race, the Wochenspiegel-RSR with drivers Weiss, Kainz and Krumbach would have finished in fourth overall place and with a gap of 3.138 seconds to Breuer and Tandy. Under consideration of the penalty, they were however still classified in a good sixth overall position.
Finishing eleventh, \”Dieter Schmidtmann\”, Andreas Ziegler and Stefan Aust (Münster/ Germany) who made his debut in the red-white Manthey-Porsche 911 GT3 Cup-MR just barely missed the top ten. At the sixth VLN race, they will have the chance to score a better result. The 38th RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen will take place on 22nd August at the Nürburgring.
