Second win of the season for Frikadelli Racing

The winners of the 54th ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennens are Sabine Schmitz, Klaus Abbelen (both from Bahrweiler/ Germany), Patrick Huisman (Netherlands) and Frank Stippler (Bad Münstereifel/ Germany). The driver quarter took the chequered flag with their Porsche 911 GT3 R entered by Frikadelli Racing after 2:45:15.791 hours race time in first position. This victory is the third win only in the history of the team based in Barweiler near the Nürburgring, but already the second successful result in the current season. Frikadelli Racing is also the first team to repeat a victory in the VLN series during this year. The predominance on the podium of the make from Zuffenhausen at the fifth VLN round was completed by Adam Osieka (Meuspath/ Germany), Christopher Mies (Heiligenhaus/ Germany) and Steve Jans (Luxembourg) in the Cup-911er entered by the team Getspeed Performance and finally by Dominik Brinkmann (Dortmund/ Germany), Felipe Laser (Hamburg/ Germany) and Markus Paltalla (Belgium) in the Porsche of the team raceunion Teichmann Racing. Due to numerous penalties that had to be applied after speeding offences in the timed practice, the scheduled four hours race distance was therefore shortened. The race was finally started at 14:05hrs and the chequered flag came out after 165 minutes so that full championship points will nevertheless be awarded. A 30 minutes summary will be shown in channel Sport 1 on 12th July at 16:00hrs.

There was a lot of work to do by the team around Clerk of the Course Andreas Thamm (Wuppertal/ Germany) after the timed practice session. “After an accident in the section Flugplatz double yellow flags were shown to recover the car”, informed Thamm. “A surprisingly great number of drivers did not respect the mandatory speed limit of 60 km/h. We have investigated each and every offence individually and in detail and were thus running behind the time schedule.” On account of the importance of some speeding offences, all of the practice laps were deleted for eight cars and these participants consequently had to take the start to the race from the end of their corresponding start group. For a number of other cars, the fastest practice times were cancelled and the practice results had to be amended accordingly. Affected by the penalties was also the later winning Frikadelli Team. “It was justified to inflict the penalty to our team as Sabine was simply too fast”, said team manager Klaus Abbelen. “Race Control made a good job even though we were thus not able to cover the full race distance.” Sabine Schmitz took the start to the race in the first starting group from the last grid position and came back to the Line after the first lap in fourth place: “That was great fun and I was able correct my mistake from the timed practice. I decided to run on slick tyres despite the gentle rain but encountered some problems at the beginning. But finally my choice of tyres was perfectly all right and I was able to quickly close up to the top group.”

Jürgen Alzen (Betzdorf/ Germany) and Dominik Schwager (Munich) were not able to defend their first pole position in the Ford GT3 entered by H&R Spezialfedern for a long time. The team lost valuable time after a tyre damage and finished the race in 13th place. The man of the first lap was Oliver Kainz (Kottenheim/ Germany) in the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of the Wochenspiegel Team Manthey. The experienced race driver relied on intermediates at the beginning of the race and finished the first lap with an advance of 15.2 seconds. However, he complained about missing performance shortly later and had to retire with technical failure.

Walkenhorst Motorsport powered by Dunlop celebrates 1,500th class win for BMW
It is done: The Team Walkenhorst powered by Dunlop with drivers Michael Schrey (Wallenhorst/ Germany) and Emin Akata (Friedrichshafen/ Germany) celebrated the 1,500th class win for BMW since the beginning of recording statistics in the year 1990. The driver duo won with an advance of one lap ahead of the second-placed team made up to Jörg Wisirchen (Euskirchen/ Germany), David Griesner (Austria) and David Ackermann (Döttingen/ Germany). Five more class wins in classes SP8T, V2, V4, V5 and VT2 went to team relying on cars of the make of BMW. Tim Schrick (Munich) and Hannu Luostarinen (Finland) of the team Kissling Motorsport scored their second victory in the Opel Astra OPC Cup class. The fastest Toyota GT86 Cup car was driven by the trio of Dörr Motorsport with drivers Maciej Dreszer (Aachen/ Germany), Arne Hoffmeister (Lutter/ Germany) and Fabian Wrabetz (Bad Soden/ Germany).

With their fifth class win in the fifth race, Rolf Derscheid (Much/ Germany) and Michael Flehmer (Overath/ Germany) in the BMW 325i entered by the club MSC Wahlscheid defended their lead in the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring. They are leading ahead of Frank Kräling (Winterberg/ Germany), Marc Gindorf (Monaco) and Christopher Brück (Cologne) in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup with an advance of 2.32 points.

The results of the 54th ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennens and the championship standing remain provisional due to protests. The sixth round of the year, the 37th RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen, will take place on 2nd August and run over the distance of four hours.