Not more than two races out of the ten rounds in the season 2014 have meanwhile been completed in the VLN endurance racing championship at the Nürburgring. A first general trend towards the Championship becomes nevertheless already apparent. In the top of the classification the teams in the class of VLN production cars as well as the Cup classes occupy the first positions. Into first place are currently Rolf Derscheid (Much/ Germany) and Michael Flehmer (Overath/ Germany). They are common names in the top positions and, both together, have scored not less than 56 class wins – but never made it into first final championship position so far. The two privateers rely upon a series BMW 325i in the class of production cars up to 2,500 cc cylinder capacity and have dominated the normally eight competitors in their class in the two first races.
They are closely chased by Max Partl (Pyrbaum/ Germany) and Jörg Weidinger (Happurg/ Germany) who won their class Cup5 with the new BMW M235i Racing at the opening round. Into third position are Christian Konnerth (Winnenden/ Germany), Niklas Steinhaus (Wermelskirchen/ Germany) and Matthias Unger (Heusenstamm/ Germany) who are also competing in the class of production cars with their BMW Z4. Places four and five are occupied by two teams from the Opel Astra OPC Cup: Thorsten Wolter (Berlin/ Germany), Heinz-Otto and Jürgen Fritzsche (both from Hückeswagen/ Germany) as well as Ralph-Peter Bonk (Senden/ Germany) who shares the cockpit with Jari Nuoramo and Juha Hannonen, both from Finland. Overall positions one to five are separated by only 0.86 points – this promises to become a thrilling season.
It is not at all surprising that the aforementioned classes will this year again be involved in the fight for the Championship title. On one hand, there is the production class which normally figure less cars. Over the last years, some of these teams have however become established in the top and dominate the action. On the other hand, there are the Cup classes which have become more and more popular and in which experienced drivers fight for the VLN victory with identical material and at the same time for the win in the respective Cup class. The numbers of starters in the BMW and Opel Cups are so high that not only the winner can score a fantastic number of points. According to the traditional formula in the endurance racing championship, the teams in the class figuring the greatest number of competitors will be allocated the highest score. And, based on this principle, a second place in one of the Cup classes can turn out to be very valuable.
The third round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring will take place on 26 April 2014. The 56th ADAC ACAS H&R Cup will run over the usual four hour race duration. A summary of the second race will be shown in channel Sport1 on 19th April at 16:30hrs.
