His warm-up times are short whilst his results are brilliant. Since a little more than five years, Manuel Metzger has been competing in races at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. In this period, he has already gained all major titles that you can win in the Eifel. He finished his first complete season in the VLN endurance championship in 2011 in gaining the championship title together with Carsten Knechtges and Tim Scheerbarth. In 2015, he scored his first overall win in the VLN and end of May 2016, he then won the 24h Race in the “Green Hell”.
The 30 years old driver, who was born in Bad Säckingen close to the Swiss border, has been moving up very quickly especially during the past 15 months. Due to his great talent, his hard work and his strong passion for the Nordschleife, Metzger has been climbing up the steps of his career at high speed – from a race driver with a very small budget up to a very popular driver who lives up to his reputation as an expert at the Nordschleife again and again. “I have been thinking several times in the past that things cannot get better, but they were topped again and again”, says Metzger.
Together with Adam Christodoulou, Bernd Schneider and Maro Engel, he participated in the first and the second VLN races this year with the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Black Falcon and finished in third and second places respectively. At the 24h Race, he then achieved the outstanding result. “I did not have any technical problems or traffic in my stints”, Metzger informs. “And the performance of Maro in the last two laps was absolutely brilliant. My heart almost stopped beating during his overtaking manoeuvre in the final lap when he went into the race lead. To celebrate this win at the 24h Race, this was simply unbelievable. My VLN title already was incredible, but the 24h victory is something different again, another dimension.”
How Metzger started his career, how he experienced his years in the VLN family and when he had to cope with a severe setback in his amazing career – this is what you will be able to read in the next edition of the Racing News which will be published on Friday 24th June at the fourth VLN race at the Nürburgring and on Saturday 25th June on this homepage.
