“I must really be satisfied. Four out of six cars arrived at the finish and achieved strong results. We have defended our leading positions in the drivers’ and the teams’ championships of the BMW single-make cup and were even able to extend our lead a little. But again, we missed a true top result on this race day”, was the summary of team manager Michael Bonk of Bonk motorsport after this seventh round of the VLN endurance racing championship at the Nürburgring, the Opel 6h ADAC Ruhr-Pokal Race.
Not everything was running smoothly for the three participating BMW M235i Racing, one of the reasons was definitely the weather conditions prevailing in the Eifel area. The track was wet at the beginning of practice but dried up quickly so that it was soon possible to use dry weather tyres. The conditions, yet, changed again after only a short while and it started to rain again. Anyone who was not able to set a fast lap time in this short time window had lost. The BMW driven by Alexander Mies, Emin Akata and Kiki Sak Nana from Thailand finished in second position on the grid. The Hakro-BMW with Mario Merten and Ralf Schall and the third BMW M235i Racing with Jürgen Meyer, Michael Bonk and Roger Kurzen from Switzerland missed the perfect moment and had to be satisfied with grid positions 12 and 13 respectively.
The difficulties continued at the start. Due to a light drizzle, the track was completely wet. However, as the conditions were supposed to improve quickly, the team decided to fit slick tyres. Schall in the Hakro-BMW returned to the pits already after the information lap to change to rain tyres. This turned out to be a wrong decision again as the track dried up in the following laps and another tyre change became necessary. “The team then dropped back to the end of the BMW field before it started to catch up brilliantly, finally finishing in second place”, said a happy team manager after the finish. “We have thus been able to defend our lead in the drivers’ championship with 102 points and in the team classification with 122 points.”
The BMW driven by Mies, Akata and Sak Nana was in the leading group for a long while but then had to change a front steering link after a collision and dropped back in seventh place. The third M235i with drivers Meyer, Bonk and Kurzen stopped beside the track after 23 laps with a technical failure.
Everything was running very well at the beginning in the Opel Astra OPC Cup. The Westfalen-Opel of Mario Merten, Jürgen Nett and Marc Legel was running perfectly in the practice and finished in second grid position. The driver trio finally took the chequered flag in ninth place. The crew of Jasmin Preisig from Switzerland and Marcel Senn were completed by Achim Nett as third driver. The trio achieved fourth place in the practice which they also scored in the race. The Opel Astra OPC with Raphael Hundeborn, Lena Strycek and Roman Löhnert gained tenth position on the grid but had to retire early in the race with a technical problem.
