Even though he has not yet competed in one single race at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, Nick Heidfeld is already a legend for the fans of this circuit in the Eifel region. During the past 35 years, the race driver from Mönchengladbach has been the only driver to chase a Formula 1 race car around the Nordschleife. Right on the day five years ago, on the 28th April 2007 and during the 49th ADAC ACAS H&R-Cups, Heidefeld completed three demonstration laps with the BMW Sauber F1.06 in the ‘Green Hell’. Next Saturday, on the 28th of April, he will now take part in his ever first race with the McLaren MC12 of Gemballa-Racing at the most beautiful race track of the world. Furthermore, there will be more than 200 teams participating in the last VLN round before the highlight of the season at the Nürburgring, the ADAC Zurich 24h Race. The programme will be completed by the Touring Car Revival in which about two dozen DTM cars of the years 1984 until 1996 will provide magical moments. Entrance all around the Nordschleife is free. Access to the open grandstands at the Grand Prix Circuit, to the paddocks as well as to the starting grid will be provided for the family-friendly price of 15 Euro per person. Children up to 14 years of age are free. Tickets will be available on-site at the ticket boxes. Any kind of information around the endurance racing championship is also available in the internet on the official website www.nuerburgring-langstrecken-serie.de as well as on Facebook under www.facebook.com/vln.de
Heidfeld’s participation shall assist in their preparation to the 24h Race. This endurance racing championship round shall decide whether he will take up the big challenge in May. “I would this year finally be able to fulfil my long-lasting desire in taking part in the 24h Race”, says Heidfeld. “But before this, at the next VLN round, I will for the first time start in the impressive McLaren MP4-12C GT3 and with my former Formula 3 team mate Sascha Bert at the probably most fascinating race track of the world.” Even though he is one of the few holders of a super licence amongst all the drivers, he should not underestimate his competitors because everybody of distinction at the Nürburgring will be at the start: Black Falcon, ROWE Racing and the Hankook-Team Heico, all together with five SLS AMG GT3 from the plant of Mercedes-Benz, Raeder-Motorsport, WRT, Phoenix- and Mamerow-Racing with the total of five Audi R8 LMS and top drivers, Manthey-, Frikadelli- and Timbuli-Racing with a handful of extremely competitive Porsche 911 GT3 R, the Young Driver AMR Aston-Martin-Team with two British GT3 super sports cars as well as Schubert-Motorsport, Vita4One and Marc VDS Racing with five BMW Z4 GT3 in total. In addition to their well-known 911 race car in class GT3 which will be driven amongst others by works driver Emmanuel Collard (France) at the third VLN round, the Haribo Racing Team has also entered a Chevrolet Corvette. The drivers in the impressive US race car are Tommy Millner (USA) and Jan Magnussen (Denmark). The longest journey to come to the Nürburgring will be for Warren Luff. Under the slogan ‘More than 60 hours travelling for a four hours race duration at the Nordschleife’, the Australian race driver will take part behind the steering wheel of an Audi R8 LMS entered by Audi race experience. “I am really delighted to be able to race at my favourite circuit finally again”, says Luff. “For sure, the journey is exhausting but it is worth to me. I am really proud to be able to drive an R8 at the Nürburgring as this is a big change compared to the V8 Supercars in which I compete in races in Australia.”
Due to the big entry, some of the classes will figure fantastic numbers of starters. In addition to class SP9 for GT cars, these will be in particular class V6 (VLN series production cars up to 3500 cc cylinder capacity), class SP3T (VLN Specials up to 2000 cc with turbo) as well as the Renault Clio Cup class with about 20 cars respectively. The drivers in these classes will be able to collect a particularly great number of points for the drivers’ championship. The more drivers are entered in a class in the endurance racing championship, the more points can be scored by the winners. This is exactly what did the current leaders in the championship during the first two rounds. After two victories in class SP3T in their Volkswagen Scirocco entered by LMS-Engineering, Christian Krognes (Norway), Dominik Brinkmann (Dortmund/ Germany) and Ullrich Andree (Cologne) are now on top of the championship classification.
The start for the 54th ADAC ACAS H&R-Cup over the four hours race distance will be given on Saturday, 28th April, at 12 o’clock exactly. The starting grid will be made up on basis of the timed practice between 08:30hrs and 10:00hrs on the morning of the same day. The demonstration laps of the DTM race cars in the Touring Car Revival will be completed between 10:20hrs and 11:05hrs at the Grand Prix Circuit.
