137 cars turned up for the penultimate last race of the 2015 VLN season. On short notice the Mercedes AMG Test Team decided to not run its new Mercedes-AMG GT3, as the projected temperatures were just above freezing plus the chance for an overcast day made the decision easy as there wasn’t much more valuable data to be collected.
Still, there was a world premiere taking place at the ROWE DMV 250-Meilen-Rennen, with the new Porsche 911 GT3 R having his first race outing. Nick Tandy and Fred Makowiecki were on hand to give the camouflaged livered 911 its first race; the car had previously been tested on the Nordschleife on multiple occasions.
Due to thick fog moving in when day broke, the start of Qualifying had to be postponed by about 45 minutes. When the lights went green for the 90 minutes of timed practice the drivers complained about a wet and very low grip track. The times were kept well north of the 9 minute barrier but as time went by the conditions improved and in the end it was Adam Christodoulou – originally slated to drive the new AMG GT3 – putting one of Black Falcon’s Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 on pole position. His 8:01.443 minutes lap time was just over a second quicker than the one of the ROWE Racing SLS, driven by Klaus Graf and Christian Hohenadel.
Frank Stippler put the Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS ultra into third, one place in front of the new Audi R8 LMS of TwinBusch Motorsport. The second Black Falcon SLS secured fifth, ahead of the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3, the Wochenspiegel Porsche and the second ROWE SLS. The best of the two Scurderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG003C’s and the new Porsche 911 GT3 R rounded out the top ten.
Due to the delayed start of Qualifying, the race started have an hour later than usual. But when the lights went green Adam Christodoulou was able to take the lead, while back in the pack Manuel Lauck completely missed his braking point for Turn 1 and hit Chris Mamerow in the Phoenix Audi R8 LMS ultra. While the SCG003Cs was able to continue – but with mild front end damage – the Audi meanwhile had to be towed back to the pitlane where the mechanics repaired the car for about an hour and a half.
Yelmer Buurman in the other Black Falcon SLS didn’t even take the start, after suffering a drive shaft failure he had to be towed back to the pit lane. Up front Christodoulou was leading from Klaus Graf and Dennis Busch in the new Audi R8 LMS of his family run team. Christodoulou pitted after three laps and gave the lead to Graf, who still had Dennis Busch giving him a hard fight for the lead, but both pitted after lap four, which then put Nick Tandy into the lead.
When the new Porsche 911 GT3 R pitted it put its predecessor run by the Frikadelli Racing Team on the top of the leaderboard. After the first round of the pit stops the Black Falcon Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 retook the lead, still holding an advantage over the ROWE SLS and the TwinBusch Audi. The next three positions were held by Porsches, with the Wochenspiegel being ahead of the Frikadelli one and the new 911 GT3 R. Nick Tandy and Fred Makowiecki were clearly the fastest of the three cars and were already vying for a podium finish.
The order inside of the top ten pretty much stayed the same and only changed during the pit stop cycles, drama then occurred in the final half hour when Christian Hohenadel took an unscheduled pitstop for a technical problem. ROWE Racing then had to park its Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 due to a wheel-hub failure. Behind the leading Black Falcon SLS the TwinBusch Audi moved up to second and finally put Nick Tandy into third. The order stayed the same until the chequered flag fell, it was the second overall victory of the season for Black Falcon and its drivers Adam Christodoulou, Hubert Haupt and Yelmer Buurman. Their teammate Manuel Metzler too, got to celebrate his first VLN victory.
After winning the last VLN race the twins Marc and Dennis Busch with the support of Marc Basseng crossed the line in second on their first outing with the new Audi R8 LMS. For Nick Tandy and Fred Makowiecki, the first outing of the new Porsche 911 GT3 R ended in third place, while their teammates Georg Weiss, Jochen Krumbach and Oliver Kainz in the Wochenspiegel Porsche 911 GT3 RSR finished fourth and the Frikadelli Racing Team 911 taking fifth.
ROWE’s remaining SLS crossed the line in sixth, holding of Michele di Martino, Matias Henkola and Henry Walkenhorst in one of the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW Z4 GT3. The next to spots were taken by two Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars, and the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG003C of Jethro Bovingdon, Jeff Westphal and Thomas Mutsch rounded out the top ten.
There were many International GT drivers entered in the race in slower cars, all in an attempt of turning their necessary laps for an A-level permit. Among them, Kelvin van der Linde, Earl Bamber and Thomas Krebs scored a class win in their production class Porsche Cayman. Maxi Buhk, Luca Stolz, Jules Szymkowiak and Vincent Abril were also in the race, aboard BMW M235i Racing Cup cars, while Bentley works drivers Maxime Soulet and Andy Soucek shared a Honda Civic Type-R.
The final round of the VLN is slated to take place on October 31st.
Sören Herweg
