The roar of the engines are finally to be heard again in the “Green Hell”. The season opener of the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring satisfied everyone perfectly: Exciting motorsport action at the most beautiful race track of the world and happy smiles at the finish, not only in the faces of the winning ROWE team.
The opening round kept in particular the responsible organiser in suspense over a long time. After bright sunshine on the Friday, the situation at the Eifel circuit on Saturday morning was completely different. The programme was delayed by four hours due to heavy fog and Race Control had to shorten both practice and race in order to comply with the eligible time window given by the circuit operator. Drivers and fans were nevertheless quite relaxed. The fans used the break imposed by the weather for a comprehensive pitwalk and took a close view onto the race cars. “We have sold more than 5,000 tickets, more than ever before at a season opener in March”, said Dietmar Busch, VLN VV GmbH & Co.KG Managing Director, happily.
The mood amongst all involved was entirely positive. “Against all the odds, we have experienced a fantastic opening of the season – with a brilliant grid and exciting sport”, said Ralph-Gerald Schlüter, VLN e.V. & Co. oHG Chief Representative. “This proves that the scaremongering of some individuals was totally unnecessary.” The Balance of Performance (BoP), with five percent less performance for the GT3 cars, had caused a lot of speculations beforehand. When asked, the statements of the drivers were however relaxed. “Everybody showed a fair and considerate driving behaviour – a good interaction out on the track”, said Patrick Pilet after this first championship round. Marco Wittmann added: “As a driver, you not really perceive the lack of power to a great extend. At the Döttinger Höhe in contrast, you really feel the differences in speed during the race. The responsible persons will thus have to take a closer look into the issue.” This is also confirmed by Michael Bork, permanent Race Director and VLN Head of Sport: “We did not have any incidents on account of the current BoP. We will now nevertheless carefully analyse and evaluate all the data together with the ADAC Nordrhein which is responsible for the Specials Regulations.”
The second round of the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring will take place in three weeks’ time. The 44thDMV 4 Hour Race on the 13thof April will run over the traditional distance of four hours.
