The usual VLN car count for the past years always has been around 200, but so far in the first two races of 2014 the number of racecars taking the start wasn’t even close. As of right now, however, the entry list for this Saturday’s third round, the 56th ADAC ACAS H&R Cup, shows 199 cars signed up, and all the classes show a growth in entries.
The SP9 class sees the first start of the Nissan GT Academy Team RJN in 2014. Hoping to once again have a strong showing, Alex Buncombe, Lucas Ordonez and Florian Strauss will push the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 through the Green Hell. Also coming back into the VLN is GT Corse by Rinaldi, fielding among others their Ferrari F458 GT3 for Alexander Mattschull, Arturo Devigus and Marco Seefried. Also lone standers in the GT3 class are Paul Wilson/ Stuart Leonard in their Aston Martin Vantage GT3, Jürgen Alzen/ Dominik Schwager with their Ford GT and the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 for Arno Klasen/ Rudi Adams/ Kevin Estre.
After winning the last race, Frikadelli Racing Team has scaled back on the drivers’ side this weekend, with Patrick Pilet sitting this one out and so the Porsche is in the hands of Klaus Abbelen, Sabine Schmitz and Patrick Huisman to score a repeat victory. Falken Motorsport is also back to score another podium, this time with Wolf Henzler, Martin Ragginger and Alexandre Imperatori behind the wheel of the Porsche 911 GT3 R. Other SP9 (GT3 spec) Porsches come from Manthey Racing for Otto Klohs/ Harald Schlotter (GT3 R) and Marco Schelp/ Michael Tischner.
Audi will be a force to be reckoned with. Phoenix-Racing fields two very strong Audi R8 LMS ultras, for Christopher Haase/ Christian Mamerow/ Laurens Vanthoor and Marcel Fässler/ Frank Stippler/ Marc Basseng. Felix Baumgartner is back for another flight through the Green Hell, sharing one of the Audi race experience R8s with Pierre Kaffer. The other race experience R8 is shared by Marco Werner, Christian Frankenhout and Dominique Bastien. Dennis and Marc Busch are also back once again with their TwinBusch Motorsport Audi R8 LMS ultra.
Absent from the entry list is Rowe-Racing and Schubert Motorsport, both concentrating on their ADAC GT Masters attacks this weekend. Holding the BMW flags high will be BMW Sports Trophy Team Marc VDS, Uwe Alzen Automotive and Walkenhorst Motorsport. At VDS the two Z4s will be pedalled by Jörg Müller, Uwe Alzen and Maxime Martin, plus Dirk Adorf and Nicky Catsburg. Uwe Alzen is pulling double duty, also racing in his own Z4 together with Philipp Wlazik, while at Walkenhorst Motorsport Niclas Kentenich will support Peter Posavac and Stefan Aust. The other Walkenhorst Z4 will be shared by Henry Walkenhorst and Ralf Oeverhaus.
Mercedes-Benz is represented by CarCollection Motorsport and Weiland Racing. At CarCollection, former ELMS and Le Mans racer Horst Felbermayr Jr. will do prep work for his attack on the Nürburgring 24 Hours.
The entry list also makes us expect the debut of the Lexus LFA Code X to be driven by Akira Iida, Juichi Wakisaka and Takuto Iguchi.
Sören Herweg
