Minimum risk, maximum score – this was the strategy of the Cup leaders Manuel Amweg and Thomas Lampert to compete in the last TMG GT86 Cup races of the season. And at the eighth of the ten rounds this year, their tactics already worked well. In perfect weather this time at the Eifel track, the Toyota Swiss Racing team duo won their fourth race this season and thus extended their lead in the overall classification.
“It was a turbulent race with a lot of yellow flag section. So I am really glad that our drivers were not involved in any incidents. The main point for us during the race was to avoid a loss of concentration and to keep our rhythm so that we could focus on securing our win. Any they did that really well,” said Roland Baumann, the boss of the winning Toyota Swiss Racing Team, in his analysis of the race.
One of the main attributes in the attractive Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) brand cup are normally the extremely exciting races. The eighth round this year was the famous exception to the rule. Whiles Amweg/ Lampert, starting from pole-position with start number 535, had an absolutely perfect race without any incidents and finished with a clear victory in the TMG GT86 CS-Cup, their competitors experienced some problems.
Nils Jung and Florian Wolf for example had to proceed to a very early unscheduled pit stop due to electrical problems in their car. Their mechanics of the Team Ring Racing managed to solve the problem but Jung and Wolf had already lost so much time that this time, they did no more play a part in the battle for the class win. During the chase that followed, they nevertheless demonstrated their driving skills and were fighting back taking second position in the end.
Even more unlucky were “Brody” and Bruno-Francesco Barbaro (Pitlane – AMC Sankt Vith), ranking third overall in the Cup and this time competing without Oliver Muytjens who couldn’t take part due to professional obligations. After just over half an hour, Barbaro was already involved in an accident and the Toyota with number 532 crashed head-on into the track guardrails. Barbaro was unhurt and manged to get the car, heavily damaged at the front, back to the pits. The Belgian team then once again demonstrated their extraordinary skills and repaired the GT86 in the fastest possible time. Unfortunately in vain, though, because the team retired later on due to a consequential damage. Their team mates Kurt Dujardyn and Jacques Derenne suffered the same disaster when they retired 45 minutes before the race end due to a technical failure.
