Despite the adverse weather conditions, the Team Prosport Performance in the end succeeded in scoring a good result. The team which is based in Herschbroisch/ Germany gained two podium positions at the prestigious Opel ADAC 6h Ruhr-Pokal Race.
Coat, umbrella, scarf and gloves – the event on 5 September was very demanding for the spectators, too. But they were finally rewarded with an exciting race, preceded by a competitive timed practice. The qualifying already revealed how tough Prosport Performance is in racing. The team of Christoph Esser who describes the Nordschleife as his home gained two pole-positions: the quartet of Nico Verdonck, Thomas Koll, Arno Klasen and Peter Terting did not only secure pole position for the team in class SP10, with a time of 8:59.127 minutes they also finished in a superior 13th overall position. Thomas Koll, Andres Serrano, Fidel Leib and Michael Grassel became first in class SP6.
In particular three of the Prosport Porsche had a really successful six hour race. At the beginning of the race, Verdonck, Koll, Klasen and Terting were still fighting for a class win in SP10. The drivers demonstrated their talents in the Porsche Cayman Pro 4 with start number 169 and defended their lead for quite a while. They finally finished second behind an Aston Martin Vantage V8 GT4.
In another Porsche Cayman (#454), Fidel Leib, Earl Bamber, Hamza Owega and Andreas Liehm became second in class V5. “The race war great fun for me even though the weather was not that enjoyable”, said this year’s winner of the legendary Le Mans 24 Hour Race, Earl Bamber, who was competing in the VLN for the first time. “I have gained a lot of great experience here and I am happy that I was able to make my debut here with Prosport Performance.”
The driver quartet Nico Verdonck, Adam Christodoulou, Peter Terting and Jörg Viebahn crossed the finish line in their Porsche 997 Cup (#61) in a strong fourth place in class SP7. “The speed was there. In particular when we are not carrying that much fuel”, said Jörg Viebahn. “The field was really huge, but we had no problems in this regard.” Former DTM driver Peter Terting added: “We could easily have made it on the podium. Unfortunately a time penalty spoiled our result”. Anyhow, with a time of 8:39.629 minutes, the Prosport-Porsche was the fastest 997 Porsche in the whole field.
“We should not be unhappy”, was the summary of team manager Christoph Esser. “We suffered some technical problems in only one of our four cars. I must however admit that I am finally a little disappointed about the result. I had hoped to score a win in class GT4. Our Porsche unfortunately had a higher fuel consumption so that we were compelled to proceed to an additional pit stop.”
