They finally succeeded at their fourth attempt: After four hours race time at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, Hamza Owega and Moritz Kranz celebrated a victory in the Cayman GT4 Trophy by Manthey-Racing. Wet and cold weather with lots of fog prevailed at the fourth round of the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring on the 25th of June. The GetSpeed Performance-Duo did not get nervous considering the difficult conditions and, after having gained pole position, scored their first class win of the year. This was the result at which Kai Riemer and Arnd Meier in the Arkenau Motorsport-Porsche Cayman GT4 originally aimed at until a miscalculation completely spoiled their plans in the seventh lap.
Just like at the second VLN race end of April, the car with start number 940 took the start from first position in their class. During the timed practice in the morning, nobody from amongst the Trophy competitors was able to beat the time of 10:43,135 minutes set by Owega and Kranz. Closes to the pole position time came Willy Hüppi and Alexander Schula (10:48,414 minutes) as wel as Riemer and Meier (10:51,904 minutes), who then took the start to the race from positions two and three respectively.
Whilst Hüppi/Schula did not have a good start, Riemer and Meier as well as the raceunion Teichmann Racing-Duo Marc Hennerici and Moritz Oberheim (starting position 5) had an almost perfect start: Riemer/Meier went right into the lead, Hennerici/Oberheim occupied third position behind the pole setters. An order which should remain for about one and half laps.
When class leader Riemer wanted to pass the section Pflanzgarten, all of a sudden his car rolled to a stop to the trackside without drive. The reason was as simple as it could be: “Probably we ran out of fuel”, Riemer says with a twinkle in his eye. “That was very annoying of course. I had already gained such a good advantage. Then we tried something which obviously did not succeed.“
The whole field passed the car with start number 25. Owega/Kranz went into the lead which they defended until the finish. “The conditions were really tricky, in every lap, the water on the track changed from lap to lap and there were lots of fog again and again. I just tried to keep my rhythm and thus managed to keep first place”, said Kranz who showed an excellent performance together with Owega. After 22 race laps, they crossed the finish line as winners with ad advance of 56 seconds ahead of Hennerici/Oberheim and about 1:46 minutes before the third placed crew ‘Max’ and ‘Jens’ who are competing under a pseudonym in start number 940.
The positions in the Trophy classification after four out of ten rounds could not be closer. Riemer/Meier were fighting hard and managed to finally finish fifth after an outstanding competitive performance despite the difficult conditions. They were pushing so hard in their Cayman GT4 that they also gained the bonus point for the fastest race lap (10:21,020 minutes). A point which may become significant in the end. With 61 points now, the Arkenau-Duo is still in the lead of the Trophy overall classification ahead of Hennerici/Oberheim with a score of 60 points. Into third place follow ‚Max’/‚Jens’ with 54 points and just one point ahead of their team colleagues Owega/Kranz.
