Action and excitement up to the end at the second round of the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring: One hour before the finish of the four hour race, the top three cars – a Porsche, an Audi and a Mercedes-AMG – were separated by only 4.517 seconds. Manthey-Racing finally took the second victory of the season. After 28 race laps, Richard Lietz and Fred Makowiecki crossed the finish line in their Porsche 911 GT3 R with an advance of 4.535 seconds ahead of the second-placed Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Haribo Racing. Into third place finished the Audi Sport Team WRT.
For the Audi Sport Team Land in contrast, the race ended dramatically. After having completed 27 laps, the Audi R8 LMS driven by Connor De Phillippi and Christopher Mies joined the Nordschleife as race leaders. Having the victory within reach, the Land-Audi slowed down on the last metres due to a lack of fuel. “To be able to fight for the win against the Porsche, we had to keep the last pit stop in lap 24 as short as possible and took only a little amount of fuel”, explained team manager Wolfgang Land. “Finally, it was just not enough. That is very annoying.”
So the road was clear for Makowiecki and Lietz who took the second victory in a row. “We must admit that we were lucky today. We wouldn’t have made it by ourselves today”, said Makowiecki who defended his championship lead in the VLN endurance championship with his second win. “We had another strong race. Our strategy was good and we did not make any mistakes.” Lietz adds: “The plan for my first participation at the Nordschleife this year was to prepare myself for the oncoming races. To finish right away on the podium is simply fantastic.”
DTM driver Nico Müller had his very first race participation in 2017. The Swiss race driver who shared the cockpit of the WRT-Audi R8 LMS with Marcel Fässler and Robin Frijns was also very happy with their third place. “Yes, it may well go on like this for the remainder of the year. I had a lot of fun in the race – finally back at the Nordschleife.”
The Bentley Team Abt with Christian Mamerow, Nico Verdonck and Jordan Petter were classified in fourth place. Behind the unlucky fellows of De Philippi and Mies finished Dennis Busch, Nicolay Møller Madsen, Mike Rockenfeller and Frank Stippler in the Phoenix-Audi in sixth place.
Second Pro-Am victory for Otto Klohs
The victory in the GT3 Pro-Am classification went for the second time to Otto Klohs in the Manthey-Porsche 911 GT3 R. In the second race, the privateer from Ludwigshafen/ Germany was supported by Lars Kern and Mathieu Jaminet. At his first participation in the GT3 race car at the Nordschleife, Jaminet gained pole-position right away and with his fastest time of 8:00.619 minutes, the 22 years old Frenchman dominated the complete group of his GT3 competitors. Sabine Schmitz, Klaus Abbelen and Andreas Ziegler finished second in the Pro-AM classification with their Frikadelli-Porsche 911 GT3 and the top three were completed by Markus and Stefan Schmickler in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Landgraf-Motorsport.
Close fight for the win in Cup 4
The narrowest finish at the 42nd DMV 4 Hour Race was timed in class Cup 4 (TMG GT86 Cup): The Ring-Racing duo Nils Jung and Florian Wolf came out on top of Manuel Amweg and Frédéric Yerly of the Toyota Swiss Racing Team with an advance of only 0.984 seconds.
Regulars in the classes Cup5 and TCR
Thomas Jäger and Rudi Adams celebrated the second victory in a row in the BMW M235i Racing Cup. The driver duo of Scheid-Honert Motorsport left 17 competitors behind in their Cup 5 class and are currently shown in second place behind Makowiecki in the drivers’ classification.
Andreas Gülden and Benjamin Leuchter also won their class for the second successive time. With the Volkswagen Golf GTI of mathilda racing, they won the TCR class, which was introduced this year, again. In second place finished Bradley Philpot, Jürgen and Joachim Nett who now scored a top three result with their Peugeot 308 Racing Cup after they had to retire in the opening round.
The third round of the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring will take place on 24th June. The 59th ADAC ACAS H&R Cup will run over the traditional distance of four hours.
