In the season 2016, the competition in the TMG GT86-Cup is probably the closest one from amongst all the other Cups organised as part of the VLN. Again and again, new teams distinguished themselves through brilliant performances at the Nürburgring Nordschleife and went into the lead of the Cup classification. A preliminary decision now seems to be taken in the ninth round, the penultimate of the year: For the third time in a row Manuel Amweg and Thomas Lampert crossed the finish line first of the Toyota pack, they celebrated their fifth class win of the season and have now an advantage of 17 points ahead of their closest rivals Nils Jung and Florian Wolf.
The Toyota Swiss Racing Team members in the pits were really relieved when the TMG GT86 Cup with start number 535 took the chequered flag as winner after 23 laps. The rain which set in during the last two laps of the four hour race was a true challenge for all the drivers, especially in the area of the Grand Prix Circuit. “But at this team we had already quite a comfortable lead so that I could finish the race in a controlled manner”, said Manuel Amweg who completed the final stint.
As the track was still wet at the start, the team had already chosen a safe strategy. “In view of the overall classification, we decided to start on wet tyres. But as the track dried off very quickly, we changed to dry tyres already after one lap. Looking back, we got everything right this time and the drivers, too, have done an excellent job”, was the summary of satisfied team manager Hannes Gautschi.
Nils Jung was not quite so happy after the race. “It’s a pity, but we couldn’t really go the pace of the Cup’s leading group in the first part of the race. We lost a lot of ground there. We managed to catch up then in the second half of the race but Amweg/Lampert had already been too far away.” It is not all over yet for Jung/Wolf. The maximum of 20 points can ideally still be scored at the season final on 22nd of October. It seems, however, that only a retirement of the Swiss team could stop them from winning the TMG GT86-Cup at the end of the ten VLN races.
Achim Wawer and Eric Curran of Mathol Racing have nothing to do with the lead in the Cup classification, considering that this was the first start of Wawer in a VLN race. So it was all the more surprising that the duo finished right away on the podium, in third place. “The guys have done a really brilliant job,” said Alexander Fielenbach, member of the Mathol Racing team organisation.
