Fastest lap : Sandritter/Jäger/Baumann/Klingmann (BMW Z4 GT3), 7:59.045 Minuten

03.08.2014

Repeated success for Frikadelli Racing

The local heroes of the Frikadelli Racing Team had a successful start into the second half of the VLN endurance racing championship season at the Nürburgring. At the 37th RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen Klaus Abbelen, Sabine Schmitz (both from Barweiler/ Germany) and Patrick Huisman (Netherlands) celebrated their third victory of the season and their second triumph in a row. The driver trio took the chequered flag after 27 race laps with an advance of 3:00.284 minutes ahead of the BMW Z4 GT3 entered by the BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert with drivers Max Sandritter (Raubling/ Germany), Thomas Jäger, Dominik Baumann (both from Austra) and Jens Klingmann (Leimen/ Germany). The podium was completed by Michael Zehe (Flörsheim-Dalsheim/ Germany) and Jan Seyffarth (Querfurt-Leimbach/ Germany) in the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 entered by ROWE Racing. The total of 168 cars took the start to the sixth VLN championship round of the year which was held in bright sunshine and 128 of them were classified. A 30 minutes summary will be shown in channel Sport 1 on 9th August at 15:30hrs.

The race which was organised by the Rheydter Club für Motorsport started with a very special moment. Following the timed practice, the pole position was gained by the Schubert Z4 GT3 with a time of 8:00.973 minutes. The second race lap at the 24.358 kilometres long combination of the Nürburgring short version and the Nordschleife then finished with a new official lap record set by Klingmann. With a time of 7:59.045 minutes, he was the first driver to complete a lap below 8 minutes. “What a lap!” said a happy Klingmann after the race. “I am very proud of being the first driver to break through this magical threshold of 8 minutes. We knew that basically we had the speed to do a lap below eight minutes but you can never plan a specific lap time at such a long and demanding track.”

Frikadelli Racing went into the lead in lap ten and would not give up its leading position until the finish. “This is an incredible win”, said Schmitz happily who even suffered a slow puncture towards the end of her stint but she took it easy and relaxed. “We have a fantastic team and it is really great fun right now.“ Huisman presented an analysis of the crucial elements of their success: “The victory was particularly important as we have achieved it with our regular drivers and under our own power. Our continuous efforts bear fruits now and all the drivers have done a brilliant job. In particular Klaus makes substantial progresses - and I wouldn’t mind if things continued this way.”

Happy faces also in the team of ROWE Racing. “We are really delighted”, said Seyffarth. “Third place, what more do we want?” Zehe, carrying out a dual role as team owner and driver, added: “A perfect day with a fair competition out on the track.”

In addition to the teams Schubert and Frikadelli, Dörr-Motorsport with the McLaren MP4-12C and the Wochenspiegel Team Manthey with the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR completed some kilometres in the lead. Whilst the British super sports car had to retire from the race after an accident which was not their fault, the crew around Georg Weiss (Monschau/ Germany) took the chequered flag into an excellent fifth place. Apart from the top three, Weiss, Kainz, Jacobs and Krumbach were only beaten by the Team Walkenhorst powered by Dunlop. With their fourth position, Ralf Oeverhaus (Osnabrück/ Germany), Peter Posavac (Essen/ Germany) and Henry Walkenhorst (Melle/ Germany) celebrated their best result of the season in the BMW Z4 GT3.

No change in the championship lead
Following a sixth position in their class, Rolf Derscheid (Much/ Germany) and Michael Flehmer (Overath/ Germany) in the BMW 325i of the team MSC Wahlscheid defended their championship lead in the drivers‘ classification of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring. Jörg Viebahn (Engelskirchen/ Germany) shared the cockpit of the Porsche 911 GT3 (model range 991) of the team Pro Sport Performance with Moritz Kranz (Wimbach/ Germany) and Marko Stipp (Herford/ Germany) in the class of VLN Specials up to 3,500 cc cylinder capacity and they managed to move up into second championship position. Their gap behind the leaders is 2.51 points. Derscheid and Flehmer are also in the lead of the classification for VLN production cars. The leader in the VLN Junior Trophy is Max Partl (Pyrbaum/ Germany) who celebrated the third class win in the BMW M235i Racing CUP for the Team Scheid-Partl together with Jörg Weidinger (Happurg/ Germany). The winners of the Team Frikadelli Racing have a clear advance in the VLN Speed Trophy.

Due to wrong information in Race Control, the chequered flag for the 37th RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen came out about 150 seconds before the scheduled four hour race duration had elapsed. Pursuant to point 22 of the circuit racing regulations, this moment was decisive for the final classification.

The highlight of the VLN endurance racing championship season at the Nürburgring will take place in three weeks’ time, on 23rd August, with the Opel 6h ADAC Ruhr-Pokal-Rennen.