The final stage of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring will begin with the 43rd ADAC Barbarossapreis to take place on 24th September. After seven races so far in the 2011 season, the decision about the championship will be taken at the three remaining rounds.
Victory or defeat in the endurance racing series is determined on the basis of a successful formula as the number of points awarded depends on the number of participants in the respective classes. 80 percent of the races organised will be taken into account for the classification. It is hence extremely important to score eight top results to be on top of the podium at the end of the year. Last season, the champions Mario Merten (Nürburg/ Germany) and Wolf Silvester (Nürnberg/ Germany) in their BMW Z4 entered by Bonk-Motorsport have regularly scored more than 9.5 points at each round. If you take this average as reference, four teams currently figure out to compete amongst the top candidates for the championship title even though they are currently not yet shown on top of the table due to one or two modest results, the percentage of void results not considered. Under consideration of the 20 percent of void results, Jannik Olivo and Elmar Jurek (both from Berlin) would lead the championship with 48.44 points (9.60 on the average), closely followed by the Black-Falcon juniors Carsten Knechtges (Mayen/ Germany), Manuel Metzger (Rickenbach-Hütten/ Germany) and Tim Scheerbarth (Dormagen/ Germany) with 48.20 points (9.64 on the average). Into third position would follow Maik Rosenberg (Attendorn/ Germany) with 47.99 points (9.60 on the average) ahead of Markus Schmickler and Guido Strohe (both from Bad Neuenahr/Ahrweiler, Germany) with a score of 47.74 points (9.55 on the average).
With the exception of the latter duo, all of these teams already had their two void results so that they must score full points at the three remaining rounds in order to maintain their chances to gain the title. And this is reason enough why the last races will be significantly important. Whilst in the past the teams scored so many points during the season that the decisions about the championship were taken prematurely, the fight in 2011 will go on till the very end.
