Successful debut into the VLN season 2018 for ROWE RACING. At the 64th ADAC Westfalenfahrt, the team from St. Ingbert / Saarland with drivers Nick Catsburg, John Edwards and Richard Westbrook finished tenth overall with their BMW M6 GT3.
“I was particularly delighted about the good start of Connor De Phillippi and John Edwards. They were integrated in the team right away, they are great guys and very fast. Connor has provided some big fights and John, with his consistency, finally brought the car into tenth place even though we were still testing some strategic issues on the car. Alltogether, the new evo package for the BMW M6 GT3 was working very well at the Nordschleife. We have made a big step forwards but the competitors, too, did not rest on their laurels”, said Team Principle Hans-Peter Naundorf.
The sister car with drivers Connor De Phillippi, Jesse Krohn and Alexander Sims in contrast had a hard time. One hour before the end, the driver trio retired due to a tyre damage. After a fast loss of tyre pressure, Jesse Krohn stopped the BMW M6 GT3 beside the track just after the entry to the Nordschleife to be on the safe side. The car would probably have been seriously damaged had he tried to continue over almost 20 more kilometres to make it back to the pits. Up to their early retirement, BMW works driver De Phillippi from the United States made a good debut in the team of ROWE RACING. The winner of last year’s ADAC Zurich 24h Race provided a fantastic show for the spectators, including some spectacular overtaking manoeuvres in heavy traffic.
A very good start in the team had also his BMW works driver colleague John Edwards. Edwards who completed the last stint secured a top-ten position for the team literally in the last seconds of the race. In the final lap, he went beside the so far tenth placed car at the access to the Döttinger Höhe and finally moved ahead when braking for the Hohenrain chicane. In the Saturday morning practice already, the two cars and crews of ROWE RACING presented themselves in superb form. The BMW M6 GT3 around Edwards in sixth place missed pole position by only 1.6 seconds, its sister car achieved the ninth time in the qualifying.
