Fascinating start of the season with one-two victory for BMW

The start of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring season was an outstanding event for the fans and an impressive demonstration of high-class club racing which the series has been providing since years. The BMW works team dominated the 58th ADAC Westfalenfahrt race which was held in brilliant sunshine. After 27 race laps, Uwe Alzen (Betzdorf/ Germany), Augusto Farfus (Brezil) and Jörg Müller (Monaco) took the win in their BMW M3 GT, ahead of Andy Priaulx (Great Britain), Dirk Müller (Switzerland) and Dirk Werner (Würzburg/ Germany) in the sister car. The podium was completed by Kenneth Heyer (Wegberg/ Germany), Thomas Jäger (Munich/ Germany), Jan Seyffarth (Querfurt-Leimbach/ Germany) and Jeroen Bleekemolen (Netherlands) in an SLS AMG GT3 of the team Black Falcon. “Fantastic weather, great crowd and a brilliant race for us”, was Alzen’s happy comment of the race. With his tenth VLN victory, Alzen also celebrated a small jubilee. A 30 minutes summary of the opening round of the VLN season will be shown on channel Sport1 on 13th April at 17:30hrs.

Priaulx was also the man of the timed practice session. The triple touring car world champion set the fastest lap with 8:39.194 minutes when the track was getting dry and thus brought the team on pole position. After the start, the BMW into top two were first of all able to defend their leading positions but were then caught at the beginning of lap 2 by a very quick Manuel Lauck (Lebach/ Germany) in the Porsche 911 GT3 R of the team Pinta-Racing. The latter was pushing very hard to defend his lead. After one hour race time, the top three – Pinta-Racing, the later winning BMW and the Porsche 911 GT3 R of Manthey-Racing – were separated by less than one second. The Manthey-Porsche driven by Timo Bernhard (Dittweiler/ Germany), Lucas Luhr (Ludwigsburg/ Germany) and Arno Klasen (Karlshausen/ Germany) had to retire shortly thereafter due to a lack of propulsion. Lauck and Michael Illbruck (Unterföhring/ Germany), too, had to abandon all hopes for a good result when the Porsche was slowed down due to a lack of fuel. They finally finished into place ten only. Temporarily, Chris Mamerow (Castrop-Rauxel/ Germany) and Armin Hahne (Wimbach/ Germany) in an SLS AMG GT3 went into the lead but they also suffered some technical problems and had to retire after 21 laps.

“This one-two victory shows that BMW has done a really great job during winter even though we did of course benefit from the many retirements of our competitors”, said Alzen and Dirk Müller added: “That was an important test for us regarding the ADAC Zurich 24h Race. We have well worked off our To-Do list and were able to demonstrate the reliability of our car.” For Black Falcon, too, the opening race was running without problems. “I am very happy with our performance”, said Heyer. “With four drivers in our team, we had of course another strategy than our competitors. Furthermore, our main target was to finish the race in which we succeeded. We are very happy that we finished on the podium, a good start of the season.”

The world premiere of the N.Technology P4/5 Competizione driven by Mika Salo (Fnnland), Nicola Larini, Fabrinzio Giovanardi and Luca Cappellari (all from Italy) was not very lucky, though. Salo had a perfect first stint, but the race was over for the team after seven laps due to smoke generation in the car. Salo was nevertheless impressed: “A fantastic experience. The Nordschleife is an extraordinary track. Furthermore, the atmosphere in the paddocks with all the fans is fantastic. I am really looking forward to our next participation on 14th May.”

A brilliant success celebrated also Andreas and Ralf Schall (both from Dornstadt/ Germany). Father and son Schall, together with Michael Bäder (Ofterdingen/ Germany), finished the race in the rather old, former DTM Mercedes 190 with a victory in group H. “It has been a long time since we last finished on the podium”, said Andreas Schall. “It’s a good feeling to be back again.” The junior completed the superb result of the family with seventh position in another SLS AMG GT3 entered by Black Falcon behind the Horn-SLS and the two Porsche 911 GT3 R of Frikadelli-Racing and the Haribo Team Manthey.

Two customer teams of Manthey Racing in the Porsche Cup class had an extremely tight finish: Wolfgang Kohler (Aldingen/ Germany), Frank Kräling (Winterberg/ Germany) and Christian Menzel (Kelberg/ Germany) took the chequered flat after four hours race time with an advance of 2.665 seconds ahead of Rainer Holte (Kampen/ Germany), Arne Hoffmeister (Lutter/ Germany) and Jochen Krumbach (Eschweiler/ Germany). The first championship lead in the new season went to Holger Goedicke (Weinsberg/ Germany) and Mathias Schläppi (Switzerland). The duo dominated the Renault Clio Cup class which figured the highest number of cars with 20 starters.

Hans-Joachim Stuck to start at the Nürburgring with his two sons
During a press conference at the opening round of the 2011 season, Hans-Joachim Stuck presented his new and currently last project in his active career as race driver. The ex-champion will compete in the ADAC Zurich 24h Race at the Nürburgring Nordschleife (23rd to 26th June 2011) together with his two sons Johannes and Ferdinand in the Team Stuck3. A long held wish will thus become true for ‘Strietzel’. “What a lucky coincidence. It will be a great challenge as we wish to defend our family honour and do a good job as you can imagine”, said the former Formula 1 driver during the team presentation last Saturday at the Nürburgring. The three members of the Stuck family will drive a Lamborghini Gallardo of the team Reiter Engineering at the ‘Green Hell’. The crew will compete in races of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring in preparation of the 24 Hours.

The second round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring will take place on 30th April. The DMV 4 Hour Race organised by the Renngemeinschaft Düren will cover the traditional distance of four hours.