Hamza Owega, Alex Schula and Moritz Kranz of Mühlner Motorsport took the victory in the Cayman GT4 Trophy by Manthey-Racing at the third round of the VLN endurance championship season. After their successful result at the opening round and a second position in the last race, this marks already the third top three result of the current season for the driver trio.
In the still cool temperatures of the morning, the Belgian team already demonstrated in the timed practice that a brilliant performance was to be expected from them. With a lap time of 8:47,659 minutes, the Mühlner team with start number 979 marked for the first time in the season a time below the 8:48 threshold and could moreover enjoy the additional point for the pole position. With a gap of only 0.8 seconds behind, the winners of VLN race 2, Moritz Gusenbauer and Daniel Bohr (no. 960, Teichmann Racing) were however at eye level.
A thrilling battle between the two favourite teams then began right after the start to the four hour race and over almost the complete race duration, they were shown on the timing monitors with a distance of only a few seconds. The Teichmann crew was in the race lead from lap nine but an accident 30 minutes before the race finish spoiled all their hopes for a second race victory in the season. So Owega/ Schula/ Kranz (#979) were finally able to secure their unchallenged victory after 25 laps.
The podium was completed by the team of start number 941 ”Max“/”Jens“ (GetSpeed Performance) in second place and number 966 Marc Keilwerth/ Marcos Adolfo Vazquez/ Timo Mölig (Mathol Racing) into third position. The fastest lap times of both teams remained below the nine-minute mark but they could not prevent that the additional point for the fastest race lap went to the winning team. The winning car, number 979, won this point with a lap time of 8:52.946 minutes.
Due to their victory, Owega, Schula and Kranz extended their lead in the drivers’ classification but there are still six races to come. The next round of the Cayman GT4 Trophy by Manthey-Racing will take place at the 48th Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy on 8th of July 2017.
Bernhard Mühlner (Mühlner Motorsport Team Principle): ”That was not an easy race today, but with the pole position, the fastest race lap and the victory, our result is of course perfect. Moritz Kranz had a bit of traffic in his fastest qualification lap, otherwise he would have been able to achieve a time of 8:44 minutes.”
