The ninth round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring took place in single-digit positive temperatures. Hubert Haupt, Manuel Metzger, Yelmer Buurman and Adam Christodoulou kept similarly cool when the quartet in the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 of Black Falcon gained pole position in the timed practice with a new fastest time of the year (8:01.443 minutes). They also set fastest lap time in the race (8:02.786 minutes) and dominated the exciting four hour race. Into second place behind the winners of the ROWE DMV 250-Miles Race finished the winners of the previous race, Dennis and Marc Busch together with Marc Basseng. The team around the twins from Bensheim/ Germany contested the first private participation of the new Audi R8 LMS that was presented this year. The podium was completed by Le Mans winner and Porsche works driver Nick Tandy from Great Britain and Frenchman Fred Makowiecki who were driving the new Porsche 911 GT3 R at the Nürburgring at its world premiere. A 30 minutes summary of the race will be shown in channel Sport1 on 24th October at 19h00.
Manuel Metzger, VLN Champion of the year 2011 when he was already competing for the Team Black Falcon, would probably never have expected that. At his second race in the powerful gullwing already, he celebrated his first VLN win. “”Simply fantastic!” were his first words after crossing the finish line. “We were already fighting for the victory at the last race but retired shortly before the finish. This was the compensation today.” The 29-years-old, though, still had to tremble throughout the last laps. Their victory was in danger due to the duel with the SLS AMG GT3 of ROWE RACING, driven by Klaus Graf and Christian Hohenadel. “Yelmer was fighting hard, but we realized that the ROWE-SLS was slightly quicker”, said Metzger. However, after 21 race laps, the car of the title patron of the event had to come to the pits with a technical problem and retired. “We know how it feels as we, too, have already experienced such a disappointment in our team, that is really bitter. But all in all, we had a very good package and deserved the win. The team convinced with fast pit stops and none of the four drivers made any mistake.”
Happy with their second place was also the team of the Busch twins. “A result on the podium after a trouble-free race, this demonstrates that the car has a lot of potential also when driven by customers”, said Basseng. “The Busch twins one again have done a perfect job.” Any they, on their part, were excited about their new race car. “It is simply a dream to drive the new R8”, said Dennis Busch. “You don’t need that much force to drive the car at the limits.” The team has now already started to prepare the next season. “We are already fully concentrated on the plans for the year 2016”, said Marc Busch. “And we would of course like to be at the start with the new R8. Things looks quite good in this respect.”
After raising his trophy for the third place up in the air, this year’s Le Mans winner Tandy showed his broadest smile. “Right away finishing on the podium, this is something that we did not expect”, he said. “We had a clear race. The new Porsche does not show its maximum potential yet at this stage. We have completed many laps and thus collected useful experience. “In particular the adventure Nordschleife was again a highlight for the 30-years-old British race driver who competed in the ‘Green Hell’ for the seventh time only. “I have understood since long now why everybody says that the Nürburgring Nordschleife is the best race track of the world!”
Behind the top three, the Wochenspiegel Team Manthey in the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR again celebrated a fantastic result, followed by Frikadelli-Racing who took the chequered flag in fifth place in their GT3-Porsche. In sixth place finished the second car of ROWE RACING with drivers Kenneth Heyer, Lance David Arnold and Dutchman Stef Dusseldorp.
The ROWE DMV 250-Miles Race resulted in some important changes in the championship classification. With second position in class SP3, the previous VLN leaders had their first lapse in the season. Dirk and Tim Groneck in the Renault Clio were this time beaten by Honda Civic drivers Uwe Wächtler and Dominik Fugel. Another, much bigger drama occurred around the previously second placed Stefan van Campenhoudt. His BMW 325 suffered a gearbox failure in the timed practice and the Team Schirmer changed the part in record time. The Belgian nevertheless just missed the deadline to join the starting grid and thus had to take the start from the pits. He furthermore collected the standard time penalty of one minute. In the race, he was then fully attacking and moved up brilliantly up in second place. The victory went to last year’s champions Rolf Derscheid and Michael Flehmer. After six wins, this was the second time for van Campenhoudt that he did not score maximum points. The team in third place, too, was not lucky this time. Arne Hoffmeister and Fabian Wrabetz finished in fourth place only in the TMG GT86 Cup class and lost points. After nine races, the leader now is van Campenhoudt ahead of the Groneck-brothers and the Dörr-Motorsport-Duo. The championship will now be decided in the final only. The 40th DMV Münsterlandpokal will take place on 31st October and run over the traditional four hour distance.
