Endurance racing is a team sport – you win as a team and you loose as a team. Up to four drivers share the cockpit in the races of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring. A glance at the start list of the opening round reveals that 52 percent of all the teams were made up of three drivers. Nevertheless 39 percent of the teams still competed in the race with two drivers, five percent consisted of four pilots and four percent participated as solo drivers. The reasons for this distribution are as manifold as pragmatic.
The VLN stands for grassroot sports on a very high level and enjoys a great popularity with the public and in particular amongst the committed motor sport enthusiasts who appreciate honest sport at close range. Apart from a handful of professional race drivers, all participants have to fund their hobby themselves. A compromise is to share the participation costs amongst several drivers. This reduces the so-called \’track time\’, which is the time for each driver to race himself at the circuit, but considering that the races run over a distance of four hours, each driver still has more than 60 minutes race time and gets his money\’s worth. Not to forget that racing at your limits for one hour at the Nürburgring Nordschleife will not even leave a professional driver cold even though he may be perfectly prepared in terms of sport activities and endurance. Apart from cost sharing, endurance is consequently an important reason for several drivers to share the cockpit. Under this consideration, the performance of the seven solo drivers at the opening round deserves highest appreciation. Another point which affects the number of drivers of course is strategy. If a team manages to cover the four hours race distance with two pit stops, they would normally not come for a third stop to change to a fourth driver. So the average of three drivers provides the perfect combination of cost-efficiency, driving pleasure and performance.
At the second VLN race, the 39th DMV 4 Hour Race, the number of drivers per car will slightly increase again compared to the 1st round. The reason is that many VLN participants will use the opportunity to make their preparations for the ADAC Zurich 24h Race at the Nürburgring in June where almost all of the teams will be made up of three and four drivers. The organising Rengemeinschaft Düren expects a full grid for the second championship race so that the spectators around the 24.358 kilometres long combination of the short version and the Nordschleife will be able to observe a fascinating competition. The start will be given exactly at 12 o\’clock and the race will run over the traditional distance of four hours. The positions on the starting grid will previously be decided in the timed practice from 08:30hrs to 10:00hrs.
