At the six hour race, the highlight in the season of the VLN endurance racing championship at the Nürburgring, Mario Farnbacher found himself in a rollercoaster of emotions. Together with his brother Dominik Farnbacher and Hiroki Yoshimoto, he gained the first position on the grid for the new Lexus RC-F GT3 of the Team Farnbacher Racing and carried the development series of the fast race car forward. Despite the adverse weather conditions in the first part of the race, the driver trio performed well within the field that comprised about 160 cars. After almost four hours race time, however, the team had to retire with a technical problem.
The Farnbacher team provided a big surprise in the timed practice of this seventh VLN race. Only a few weeks after Mario Farnbacher celebrated the first result on the podium for the Lexus RC-F GT3 with position two, his brother Dominik followed this achievement in setting the first pole position. Farnbacher completed the lap at the slippery Nordschleife in 8:19 minutes. Farnbacher: „It was a fantastic feeling to be on pole position at the VLN. Our timing in the qualifying and our tyre choice were perfect. So it was enough to finish with an advance of five seconds.“
Before the start oft he race, the team of Farnbacher Racing decided to fit hand-cut slick tyres. Compared to the cars equipped with rain tyres, start driver Dominik Farnbacher was clearly slower and dropped back into 42nd position in the first laps. But it should quickly turn out that their tyre choice had been the right one. The track became more and more dry and the cars on the rain tyres became slower and slower and had to proceed to the pits to change to slick tyres. The classfication changed quickly and in favour of the Farnbacher brothers. Dominik Farnbacher gained position by position and was shown back in 17th place already after five laps. They did not have to change tyres in the first race laps, in contrast to most of their competitors.
Mid-race, the weather at the Eifel track had become much better and the driver trio moved up in the top ten with perfect and fast lap times. At 15h57 then, the Lexus RC-F GT3 stopped in the area of Quiddelbacher Höhe with a technical failure and all the chances on finishing in a top position were spoiled. „We didn’t have power anymore“, explained Farnbacher. „We have now to investigate on the reason and see what exactly went wrong. The parts will be sent to Japan and Lexus will help with the analysis. The pole position nevertheless showed us all how strong we are with the new car. After all, we have made another step forwards.“
