A return just in time to make the championship battle interesting
All season long the VLN season has been lacking one car, the one with the number 1 on its hood and doors. This was due to the fact that LMS Engineering had to wait a long time to complete their engine for the brand new Audi TT-RS. Unlike the other TT-RS in the SP3T class the LMS car has a five cylinder turbo engine working under its bonnet. Ulli Andree and Christian Krognes are slated to share driving duties behind the wheel of the TT-RS, they enjoyed a trouble free testday on the Nordschleife last week and are hoping for a good result in Saturdays race. What’s intriguing about them joining the class this late in the season is that they are competing against the current championship leaders from Raeder Motorsport, Christoph Breuer and Elmar Deegener have driven their TT-RS to five class wins in the five VLN races so far this season.
But also the fight for the overall victory should be a good one. After the win the last time out Jan Seyffarth and Nico Bastian are back behind the wheel of the Rowe-Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 and the forecast of rain and cold temperatures might suit their Dunlop tires very well. The other Rowe car is manned by Michael Zehe, Mark Bullitt and Marko Hartung. Another Dunlop shod SLS comes from CarCollection for Peter Schmidt, David Horn and Henri Moser.
Hoping out for finally having the luck to achieve a good result is the BMW Z4 GT3 of Uwe Alzen Automotive, where Uwe Alzen and Philipp Wlazik are sharing driving duties. After a fine Top 10 result in the 6 Hours race the Dunlop livered Z4 of Henri Walkenhorst and Ralf Oeverhaus is back hoping for another fine running. After their season has been one to forget so far the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 of Dörr Motorsport is supposed to be driven by Rudi Adams and Arno Klasen. The team is hoping to finally get their technical woes behind them.
After it was the only Phoenix-Racing R8 not to be able to start the 6 hours race the R8 of the brother pairing Johannes and Ferdinand Stuck is the sole representative of Phoenix-Racing this weekend. A second R8 is fielded by TwinBusch Motorsport for the Twins Dennis and Marc Busch.
The last race was pretty controversial for the Haribo Racing Team, when a problem with their gas pump in the pit lane resulted in them retiring their cars early. This time the golden gummie bear Porsche is back with Richard Westbrook and Mike Stursberg behind the wheel. With Robert Renauer on GT Masters duty Marco Seefried takes his seat in the Pinta Porsche 911 GT3 R, he shares with Michael Illbruck. The third GT3 R comes from Frikadelli Racing Team, this time with their regular line up of Klaus Abbelen, Sabine Schmitz and Patrick Huisman.
We also have a debut in the championship with the first Ferrari F458 GT3 taking part in the VLN, the GT Corse team, that has been fielding self build challenge car bases 458 for the past two years finally steps up to the SP9 class. Pierre Kaffer, Pierre Ehret and Alexander Mattschull are slated to drive the prancing horse.
Still in the championship hunt is the Wochenspiegel Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of Michael Jacbos, Oliver Kainz and Georg Weiss. The big brother of the Wochenspiegel-911, the green and yellow 4,4 Liter Manthey RSR is back for another race with Jochen Krumbach, Jörg Bergmeister and Lucas Luhr. Maybe Olaf’s new weapon can score a podium in its second outing.
Soren Herweg
