With a class win in the Porsche Cup classification as well as positions four and five in the competitive class SP7, the Adenau based team of Raceunion Teichmann Racing scored its best result of the now completed first half of the season in the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring.
The qualifying was already running perfectly for the RTR drivers. The Porsche driven by Marc Hennerici and Christian Menzel scored the fastest practice lap in the class for Porsche Carrera Cup vehicles. With his pole time of 8:30.012 minutes, Christian Menzel was more than 2.5 seconds faster than the second-placed and simultaneously achieved the fastest lap time of their class in a race since the introduction of the speed limit zones at the Nordschleife. With their 24th practice time overall in the REWE Porsche, Jens Esser and Airgree, too, reinforced their excellent prospects for a good race result. The crew in the “Deutsche Payment Porsche” around the two team owners Alex Autumn and Karl-Heinz Teichmann in contrast was not that successful. They had to start the race from 34th grid position so it was clear that they had to try hard to catch up.
In his first stint already, start driver Menzel demonstrated the perfect performance of the RTR Cup Porsche. When he came to the pits at the end of his turn, he had a comfortable advance of 8.5 seconds ahead of the second-placed in their class. After a perfect pit stop, Menzel remained inside the cockpit and was thereafter able to continuously increase his advance to almost one minute before he handed over the steering wheel to Hennerici.
Hennerici managed to carry on the brilliant performance of his team mate and continued to dominate the Porsche Cup class in the next laps until their excellent lap times were spoiled by vibrations in the car. The RTR team reacted promptly and advanced the next scheduled pit stop. As it was foreseeable at that moment that the race duration would run over 28 laps, the RTR team put a sufficient amount of fuel into the car so that they would be able to finish the race without a further stop. Due to a long section at the Döttinger Höhe under double yellow flags, they were however not able to go back into the lead after the pit stop of the current leader. After the final pit stop of the leading GetSpeed Porsche with Christopher Mies behind the steering wheel, Hennerici was still ten seconds behind and started a tough fight to close up. A factor that made things worse was that another car overlooked the RTR Porsche in its chase at the GP circuit. A collision could not be avoided and Hennerici had to continue his battle about 1st place with a misaligned track. The RTR driver was nevertheless able to close up quickly to the great enjoyment of the spectators who from now on saw exciting but always fair duels between the two Porsche drivers about class win. They started the final lap bumper to bumper and Hennerici was finally able to regain the lead in a thrilling fight.
The summary of the RTR team manager: “It is a pity that GetSpeed encountered a problem after Marc’s gorgeous overtaking manoeuvre. We are very happy that we went into the lead before their retirement and that we could once again demonstrate our capabilities out on the track with our third class win in a row. My level of stress actually was always low as I know very well that we are a really magnificent team.”
At the start already, Jens Esser in the REWE Porsche was able to gain some places. In a fast first turn, he was then able to follow the pace of his rivals in the class and to defend his position. He also moved up several places in the overall classification. At the end of his stint, Jens, who lives in Essen/ Germany, handed over the steering wheel to his team mate “Airgee” who also showed a good performance. He gained some more places in completing his stint safely and in setting constant times and he also achieved his personal fastest lap time. At the scheduled pit stop, Jens Esser went back into the race car and finished the race in a well-deserved fourth position in the very competitive class SP7 and in 13th overall place.
The crew in the ‘Deutscher Payment Porsche’ was for the first time this year made up of the driver duo Alex Autumn and Karl-Heinz Teichmann. The two friends and RTR team owners were very much looking forward to their common participation. Autumn was the start driver in the car with start number 87 and right away started a spectacular performance to catch up. The lap times became faster and faster each time and in the end he even set his personal fastest time. At the pit stop, Karl-Heinz Teichmann took over the steering wheel in the nine-eleven. After his longer break in racing, the Nordschleife experienced driver was nevertheless able to get used to racing very quickly and defended their lead in the class whilst furthermore moving up some places in the overall classification. The final stint was then completed again by start driver Autumn who confirmed his brilliant performance from the first part of the race. The fitness which Autumn has acquired due to numberless kilometres on his bicycle was definitely helpful hereby. The driver duo finally finished 5th in class SP7 and 15th overall.
Georg Teichmann: “We are of course very happy to have finished in the top 15 with all three cars and to have scored the third successive victory in our group for Cup vehicles. It is a pity that there is no Cup2 team classification as we would be in the lead right now.”
