The situation in the Opel Astra OPC Cup is now coming to a peak: The decision who will be able to raise the winner’s cup in the air at the end of the season in the popular Opel single-make cup will only be taken at the tenth and last round of the year. Whilst Alexander Schula and Willy Hüppi dominated the ninth round of the cup during the VLN endurance racing championship in a superior manner and won the four hour race at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, Daniel Bohr, Jari Nuoramo and Juha Hannonen went into the lead of the table after finishing fifth in the cup classification. In partly difficult conditions, Marcel Senn and Jasmin Preisig in the OPC GTC with start number 351 finished in second place. The podium on Saturday was completed by Kai Jordan, Lucas Waltermann and Jens Wulf who took the chequered flag in third position.
How can Hüppi and Schula make it to win the cup? An extreme effort because the team of Kappeler Motorsport had to organise a spare car after an accident at the previous race and to convince the Swiss to go back into the cockpit after he rolled the car. It was worth the efforts, the driver duo rewarded itself and the team with a victory. “If you fall from the horse, you have to get up again – this is what my team told me”, said Hüppi who was more than happy after the prizegiving ceremony. “After my accident, I had something like mixed feelings in the first laps. But I got confidence when I realized that I was quite quick right from the start and had a safe feeling.” With their victory, the duo is back again before the big final in the group of the title favourites at least when looking at the bare figures.
In this group is also Jasmin Preisig and Marcel Senn, their path of success is continuing to point steeply upwards. After scoring fourth and third places at the last two races, they were able to even climb one position further up on the podium at the ninth round. Second position is so far the best result that the two Swiss race drivers have achieved in the Cup. “When Marces recently said that after positions four and three, it is only a matter of logics that the next result will be second place, it was supposed to be just a joke – but in the end he was right. We have shown constant performances throughout the complete season and thus finished all of the races this season. We would like to make another appointment on the winner’s podium for the big final.”
In addition to the well-known faces, a few new faces appeared on the winner’s podium this time at the ninth round of the Opel Astra OPC Cup. Those were Kai Jordan, Lucas Waltermann and Jens Wulf who shared the cockpit in the OPC GT with start number 343 and entered by Lubner Motorsport. For all of the three, this was the first participation in the Cup and they could finish on the podium at their debut. Kai Jordan who has already successfully competed in may single-make cups was able to control the 320 HP strong, front-wheel driven car perfectly right from the start and was full of praise for the Cup race car with its good handling despite the difficult conditions. “On the racing line, everything was ok but you had to watch carefully when you were off the line”, he said. “Each single mistake could have resulted in being Out, so my team mates and myself proceeded with appropriate care.”
The decision about the title in the Opel Astra OPC Cup will be taken in two weeks time now. Nuoramo, Hannonen and Bohr will start the last race of the season with a score of 163 points. The driver trio was quite lucky in the race as their car was involved in a collision already at an early stage in the race and they lost many places. Thereafter, they lost moreover third and fifth gears but the GTC OPC with start number 345 nevertheless crossed the finish line in fifth place. “Somehow, our bad luck in the first part of the race then turned into good luck”, said Nuorama from Finland happily and Bohr added: “We really took great care in driving our car around the track in order not to take any risks and to treat our partly damaged gearbox with care. That was the key to our success today.”
After two races without any points, Fritzsche, Fritzsche and Luostarinen dropped back in second place with 157 points and a gap of six points to the new Cup leaders. All of a sudden, Senn and Preisig, too, still have chances to gain the title in purely arithmetical terms. 30 points remain tob e awarded and they are in third championship position with a score of 140 points. Race winners Hüppi and Schula are still able to catch up with the championship leaders provided they win the final and then celebrate the title as the new champions due to their greater number of victories.
The decisive race of the season, the 40th DMV Münsterlandpokal, will take place on 31st October 2015. It will run over the traditional four hour distance.
