Hat-trick for the Trophy leaders: Once again, Marc Hennerici and Moritz Oberheim demonstrated their top-class in the Cayman GT4 Trophy by Manthey-Racing at the ‘XL’-race in the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring. For the third time already in the current season, the two raceunion Teichmann Racing drivers first secured the pole-position, then completed the fastest lap in the race and finally dominated all of their challengers. Yet, once again, their fifth Cup3 victory in the seventh race was anything but an easy and smooth walkover. Especially start number 25 – Kai Riemer, Arnd Meier and Peter Scharmach – kept in close touch before they even went into the lead but finally had to admit defeat with a gap of about 23 seconds.
Hennerici/Oberheim thus achieved the maximum number of points in a Trophy race for the third time this year. They scored the total of 22 points – 20 for their victory and one each for the pole-position and for the fastest race lap and they thus increased their lead in the Trophy classification. Their practice time of 8:46,471 minutes was almost half a second faster than the one of Hamza Owega and Moritz Kranz who once again were supported by Daniel Mursch and, for the first time, by Bradley Philpot in the GetSpeed Performance-Cayman. So the two closest rivals in the overall classification occupied the first row on the starting grid in their class. The second row was completed by Riemer/ Meier/ Scharmach in the Arkenau Motorsport-Porsche and by Willy Hüppi, Alexander Schula and Patrick Assenheimer.
Whilst the Getspeed quartet lost some positions during the first part of the race, the Arkenau trio was pushing hard to catch up with the pole setters and even manged to pass them. This was also possible as the fuel pump was not working properly during the fuel stop of the pole setters so that they lost a lot of time and dropped back into fourth position.
The six hour race was, however, basically characterised by two duels: Hennerici/ Oberheim against Riemer/ Meier/ Scharmach, fighting about first place, and Owega/ Kranz/ Philpot/ Mursch against Hüppi/ Schula/ Assenheimer, fighting about third position. “The physical stress is of course quite high especially in these temperatures and in a race over six hours. Fortunately, the Cayman has an air conditioning. As a driver, you are nevertheless sweating a lot so you need to be in a good physical condition”, said Hüppi who barely missed the podium despite all of his and his team mates’ efforts. With an advance of about 32 seconds, the GetSpeed crew secured third place and thus defended their second position in the Trophy classification.
Also because Hennerici/Oberheim were able to move away from their rivals towards the end of the race. Team manager Karl-Heinz Teichmann, yet, disclosed after the race: “We did not really go for victory this time as we are already looking to the championship with one eye.” His driver duo has already collected 125 points in the championship. Into second place follow Owega and Kranz with a score of 94 points and the top three are completed by Riemer and Meier with only one point behind. So team manager Nikolaus Arkenau stated: “The second place is perfectly in order for us and more than we had expected. The car was perfect throughout the complete distance and the team has done a very good job. We have furthermore secured some important championship points in the fight about the vice champion’s title.”
