The third round of the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring is now already six weeks ago. After the longer break around the 24h Race, we are now facing the fourth race of the season at the 24.358 kilometres long race track in the Eifel, the 47th Adenauer ADAC Deutsche Payment-Trophy. During the four hour race, the spectators around the Nordschleife may once again look forward to the popular and colourful mix of small and big cars driven by amateur and professional race drivers, to exciting battles about positions and championship points in the various classes – and to two racing debuts. The current VLN champions in a Renault Clio and a power package from the United States will make their debut in the VLN 2016. The timed practice will begin at 8:30 am and the race will be started at 12 o’clock.
Fjordbach aiming at a third victory
Anders Fjordbach has already become an institution in the VLN. A third victory is scheduled to now follow the two wins in the first two races which he has scored together with Frank Stippler. The young driver from Denmark will this time share the cockpit of the Phoenix-Audi R8 LMS with the experienced Marc Basseng. Jörg Müller and Jesse Krohn will likewise arrive at the Eifel circuit with a great ambition to win. In the Schubert-BMW M6 GT3, they have already won (together with Marco Wittmann) the third round of the season; they will this time be supported by Victor Bouveng in the M6 GT3 of Walkenhorst Motorsport. These are only two examples out of the more than 20 potential winners in the list of entries which comprises more than 150 cars on the starting grid of the 47th Adenauer ADAC Deutsche Payment-Trophy.
The first kilometres at the Nordschleife
The new Callaway-Corvette C7 GT-R which will make its debut at the Nordschleife in 2016 would also like to join this group on the last weekend in June. “Originally, we should even have two Corvette at the start”, informs Patrick Assenheimer, “but one of our drivers has not got the Permit yet, so unfortunately, we had to cancel the participation of the second car.”
Patrick Assenheimer will share the cockpit of the American super sports car with Daniel Keilwitz and Boris Said. In contrast to his vehicle, he himself has already gained a lot of experience at the Nürburgring. Since 2011, the Swabian has been regularly competing in the VLN with a Mercedes-Benz C230 in class V4. He has been participating with a Corvette in the ADAC GT Masters since 2013.
“With the Corvette C7 GT-R, the Team Callaway wishes to introduce into the market a true all-round race car that is equally adapted for sprint and for endurance racing”, explains Assenheimer. “We would now like to demonstrate the potential of the Corvette at the Nordschleife. I am really looking forward to the race, also considering that I have started my motorsport career in the VLN at the Nürburgring.”
Chasing after a top result
In the fourth race of the VLN season 2016, the competition in the fight about the top positions will once again be very strong. In addition to the Mercedes-AMG GT3, BMW M6 GT3 and Audi R8 LMS, especially Porsche would like to improve their previous record for the season at the Nordschleife with the new GT3. Four nine-eleven will be at the start to chase after the first top result in 2016, amongst those the Frikadelli-Porsche 911 GT3 R with Klaus Abbelen, Patrick Huisman, Norbert Siedler and Sabine Schmitz.
Moreover, Uwe Alzen and Philipp Wlazik in the Ford GT and the Farnbach brothers Dominik and Mario in the Lexus RC-F GT3 will also be competing for a place on the podium.
Champions challenging series winners
Two other brothers pursue another objective: For the first time in the current VLN season, Tim and Dirk Groneck will bring the car with start number one to the Nürburgring Nordschleife. They took the title last year with their Renault Clio – and this was already the second time after 2013.
Their strongest competitors in class SP3 are supposed to be Gerrit Holthaus and Stephan Epp at their personal debut of the season. Also competing in a Renault Clio, they have so far won class SP3 in all of the three previous races and they have good chances to succeed to the Groneck brothers in 2016. Epp and Holthaus are currently shown in fourth place in the VLN championship.
Plenty of top drivers
Since the third race, Michael Schrey and Alexander Mies are in the lead of the championship table. They have shown an outstanding performance in the fantastic field, in terms of both quality and quantity, of the BMW M235i Racing Cup – they won their class in all of the three races. At the opening round, the Bonk Motorsport duo left 18 competitors behind, in the second race 19 and in the third one even 20. And not less than 22 cars have now entered the fourth race in the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring in the Cup5 class – the BMW M235i Racing Cup will thus be the biggest class in the complete field of the VLN. Should Michael Schrey and Alexander Mies again be in the front after the four hours, they would already have won almost half the battle on the way to gaining the championship.
