Arne Hoffmeister and Fredy Barth showed a brilliant performance in their chase to catch up with their KTM X-BOW GT4 at the ROWE 6 Hour ADAC Ruhr-Pokal-Rennen at the Nürburgring. The driver duo moved up from position 157 in class VLN5 into a final 19th overall place due to a very good strategy and a perfect tyre choice in the typical Eifel weather with wind and rain. “It was not sure at all whether I would be able to start this weekend, and now we’ve had such a fantastic race. I am really glad that we were able to demonstrate the potential of the car in such an impressive way”, said Fredy Barth.
Yet, things did not look very good for Hoffmeister and Barth right after the start of the race. In the very first corner, an Aston Martin crashed into their car with start driver Barth. The steering rod had to be changed. “We lost about 15 minutes due to this collision. I do not want to look into the results because I would realise then that we could have made it into the top ten without this incident”, said team manager Uwe Isert sadly with regard to this missed chance.
Four cars started at the second round of the recently introduced “KTM X-BOW Cup powered by Michelin“. A new competitor here was the father-and-son team of Axel and Max Friedhoff who had previously competed in the VLN in the team “Aimpoint Racing”. Initially with a Renault Clio, last year with a TCR race car and now the change into the KTM X-BOW GT4 in which they finished right away in second place. At the same time, they took 60th position overall. “Our preparation period was extremely short. And then we started immediately with a six-hour race in the tricky Eifel weather. Max and I were very happy to nevertheless score some points. To drive the KTM X-BOW is really fun”, said Axel Friedhoff.
Ferdinand and Johannes Stuck in the KTM X-BOW GT4 of ISERT Motorsport had to retire already in the qualifying. Ferdinand Stuck went off in the area Hohe Acht due to an oil spill on the track and it was impossible to repair the car within the break of one hour. The crew of Florian Wolf and Nils Jung, too, was not lucky and had an early stop in the race. Their KTM X-BOW GT4 was also hit by an Aston Martin but they were not able to resume the race.
In the lead after two of six rounds is the duo Hoffmeister and Barth with twelve points and tied with Stuck/Stuck. Into third place follow the teams Jung/Wolf and Friedhoff/Friedhoff, also level on points.
