A debutant caused a sensation in the Cayman GT4 Trophy by Manthey-Racing at VLN race 8. Solo driver Gabriele Piana completed a superior race for Mühlner Motorsport. In unstable weather conditions, the Italian race driver was not only leading in the Cup class, he was temporarily also classified in the top ten overall. Hamza Owega, Alex Schula and Moritz Kranz, who had two weeks ago already in advance secured the titles in the drivers’ and the teams’ championships with their victory at VLN race 7, changed positions with the 31-years-old debutant just before the race end in view of a possible victory of the Mühlner Motorsport trio in the VLN overall classification. “It was a little tough at the beginning of the race as I got stuck in the traffic. But then the track conditions changed. Later the track was completely wet and all went well for me. For sure, as a racing driver you don’t want to finish second in the end. But I did not start to take away important points from Mühlner Motorsport. So everything is fine and all right”, said Piana. Into third place finished Marc Keilwerth, Timo Mölig and Marcos Adolfo Vazquez of Mathol Racing.
The race was marked by many retirements. The winners of VLN race 2, Werner Gusenbauer and Daniel Bohr of Teichmann Racing were caught three laps before the finish. One hour before the chequered flag came out, “Max“ and Fabian Schiller also had to stop the race. The latter had won VLN race 6 together with GetSpeed Team Principle Adam Osieka.
In the CUP3 classification, Owega, Schula and Kranz are heading towards several records. In addition to the sixth victory of the season, the driver trio took pole position for the sixth time and completed the fastest race lap for the seventh time which brought them one additional championship point respectively. Last year’s champions Marc Hennerici and Moritz Oberheim had succeeded in gaining five pole positions and five fastest race laps in 2006. “Not everything was running perfectly for us. Moreover, we received a Stop-and-Go Penalty in the final part. Two laps before the finish, I was able to set the fastest race lap with new tyres, the car was really running very well. But it is actually Gabriele who would have deserved the victory”, said Moritz Kranz. Piana received much praise also from Team Principle Bernhard Mühlner: “The one-two win is of course fantastic. We knew that the cars had the potential but it is great that we were able to put this also in practice. In view of the overall classification, we finally changed positions, Gabriele has hereby turned out to be not only a great race driver but also a brilliant team player.”
