Frank Stippler and Anders Fjordbach have not only won the season opener of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring 2016 with their Phoenix-Audi R8 LMS. The experienced German and the young Dane are at the same time the leaders in the VLN championship. Well, it seems to be a logical consequence that the winners of the first round in a race series are at the same time in the lead of the championship, this can yet not be taken for granted in the VLN. For in the VLN, the number of participants in each class is decisive for the number of points allocated in that class for the winners. The reason why it seems very unlikely that Stippler and Fjordbach will still be in the lead of the table after ten races and which participants have clearly better chances to win the championship is explained in the following.
The basic principles applying for the points allocation
The more participants there are on the grid in a class, the more points are allocated to the class winners in the VLN. These numbers of points are specified in detail in a particular table. An example from the opening round: Stippler and Fjordbach won in class SP9 whereas Oliver Schumacher and Ernst Berg became first in class SP2T with their Peugeot RCZ. Whilst Stippler and Fjordbach prevailed over 29 competitors in their class, Schumacher and Berg dominated only two rivals. The Phoenix duo thus collected 9.83 championship points for their win and the Peugeot drivers scored only 8.33 points which moves them down to 70th place in the championship table after this first race of the season. This example illustrates how important the number of cars on the grid in the respective class is in order to be able to fight for the championship. Another important factor is that only the eight best results out of the ten championship races will be taken into consideration for the final classification.
Even though Stippler and Fjordbach seem to have good chances after the first round, it must be reminded that the competition in class SP9 is very well balanced. So it is particularly difficult in this class to celebrate a series of wins. According to previous experience, the number of starters will moreover considerably decrease after the Nürburgring 24h which makes the title win even more difficult.
In the second edition of the Racing news, we have prepared an analysis to assess in which classes the prospects to win the VLN title are the best ones. This second edition of the year 2016 will be available on-site at the Nürburgring from Friday, 29 April, and published for download on this homepage from Saturday, 30 April.
