19 cars and lots of racing action, the drivers in the BMW M235i Racing Cup demonstrated in an impressive way why this Cup class is one of the highlights in the VLN endurance racing championship. Once again, it was only some small things which should make all the difference. In the case of the Team Scheid-Hinert Motorsport, those were only a few metres. The car with start number 666 took the chequered flag in first class position, but it was finally Michael Schrey and Alexander Mies in the Bonk Motorsport BMW who celebrated the victory. The reason was a penalty given to the Scheid-Honert duo Rudi Adams and Thomas Jäger after which they dropped back into seventh place due to the close competition in the field.
Yet, one man’s sorrow is another man’s joy! Schrey and Mies had already an excellent practice session. Their lap time of 9:12.350 minutes brought them on pole position and the BMW duo continued their brilliant performance in the race. Throughout the complete four hour race duration, they were in the leading group and finished with a razor-thin advance of about ten seconds ahead of the single driver of the Team Schirmer, Stefan van Campenhoudt. The distance of the Belgian himself ahead of DTM driver and Nordschleife debutant Tom Blomqvist in the Walkenhorst-BMW was almost one minute. And it was exactly these four drivers who finally celebrated their respective success on the podium.
When the race finished, the team in the Scheid-Honert pits was already aware that their first place would not last long. The reason was a 185 seconds time penalty given to the young Austrian Thomas Jäger. In a Code-60-zone, he had started to accelerate too early, a few metres before the green flag which indicates the end of the zone, and thus exceeded the maximum speed of 60 km/h.
Jäger nevertheless showed a fantastic performance even though, right after the start of the race, he dropped back into fifth place after taking the start from third position. “My tyres were not warmed up that perfectly, so I needed a few corners to get them to the right temperature”, said Jäger who later gradually gained places. When he changed the cockpit to his team mate Adams, all of his Cup rivals were already left behind. Adams, who made his debut in the Cup, had a thrilling duel with Mies and secured his advance of about half a second until the finish. As said before, it was nevertheless not them celebrating the victory. “A perfect start. We still have to work on a few details but we should then be ready to join the fight for this year’s title in the Cup”, said Michael Bonk, team manager of the winning duo Schrey/ Mies.
