Although the cold temperatures and intermittent rain yielded few new insights at the Nürburgring Nordschleife test, for many teams it was still a great success. For a majority of the over 100 teams it was a first opportunity to try out their equipment for the 2016 season.
A total of eight hours of training opportunity were on tap, but due to a long red flag period around midday they were reduced to about six hours. Rather worryingly the reason for the interruption was a collision between a race car and a course official car at the Fuchsröhre section. In the crash both the driver of the race car as well as the occupants of the support vehicle were slightly injured, all were taken to the hospital in Adenau as a precautionary measure. As the police was tasked with recording the crash proceedings the session was halted for over two hours.
Many of the cars present were GT3, mainly due to the generation change that happened in the category over the winter months. With ROWE RACING, switching to the new BMW M6 GT3 over the winter from the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3, Maxime Martin, Klaus Graf, Alexander Sims and Philipp Eng were in asked to do the first outing with the M6s on the Nordschleife.. The remaining pilots for their line up at the Nürburgring 24 Hours Dirk Werner, Nicky Catsburg, Markus Palttala and Richard Westbrook were all excused absent, they were racing at the 12 Hours of Sebring. Just as ROWE RACING the second BMW works team Schubert Motorsport took two of the new BMW M6 GT3 to the Eifel mountains. Here Martin Tomczyk, Augusto Farfus and Marco Wittmann shared the steering wheel. As with ROWE the rest of Schubert pilots were either in Sebring, Klingmann, Lucas Luhr, John Edwards and Jesse Krohn, or in Okayama, Jörg Müller.
In addition to the four factory-backed BMW M6 GT3 the two M6 by Walkenhorst Motorsport powered by Dunlop also tested around the Nürburg. George Richardson, Matias Henkola, Victor Bouveng, Christian Krognes, Michele di Martino and BMW DTM driver Tom Blomqvist got behind the wheel. With Blomqvist also having a BMW M235i Racing Cup car at his expense to enhance his knowledge of the Nürburgring Nordschleife ahead of his first outing in the 24 hours. The BMW M235i Racing Cup vehicles the Nordschleife debut of the update kits was the biggest change in the form of a rear spoiler on the program for this reason turned many of the Cup participants diligently their rounds.
A world premiere with the Cayman GT4 Trophy by Manthey Racing also took place on Saturday. Over the winter Manthey Racing has built countless examples of the new Porsche Cayman GT4 and delivered them to the participants (making the situation with the British GtChampiomship ciustomers even more perplexing!).
But this was not the only premiere from Porsche, as the new Porsche 911 GT3 R was given its Nordschleife debut in customer hands. A total of six new 911s from Zuffenhausen took up the challenge of the Green Hell. Manthey Racing entered a total of four 911 GT3 R. Customer vehicles for Otto Klohs, Dieter Schmidt man and Porsche Junior Matteo Cairoli and the new Wochenspiegel Porsche for Georg Weiss, Jochen Krumbach, Oliver Kainz and Mike Stursberg.
Manthey Racing also brought the two works entered Porsche 911 GT3 R to the test day with Richard Lietz and Michael Ammermüller sharing the two cars.
In addition, Falken Motorsport and Frikadelli Racing Team also entered their new GT3 Porsches. Falken Motorsport had Peter Dumbreck and Martin Ragginger share the test work, while Norbert Siedler, Klaus Abbelen, Patrick Huisman and Sabine Schmitz sat in the Frikadelli 911.
Kremer Racing brought its own development, the Porsche 997 K3 to the Nürburgring, with the currently one off vehicle being driven Wolfgang Kaufmann and Eberhard Baunach.
Just like the Porsche 911 GT3 R the Mercedes-AMG GT3 was entered for the first time by customers in an event at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Black Falcon had Nico Bastian, Adam Christodoulou, Hubert Haupt, Yelmer Buurman, Manuel Metzger and Abdulaziz al Faisal aboard their two AMG GT3s. The second AMG work team, the Haribo Racing Team squad was present with its Mercedes-AMG GT3, here Lance-David Arnold, Jan Seyffahrt and Uwe Alzen took duty on working out the setup work. For MANN FILTER Team Zakspeed Sebastian Asch and Luca Ludwig took turns behind the steering wheel ofthe Mercedes-AMG GT3. Mercedes-AMG development partner HWA also entered their test car with Thomas Jäger, while the third works supported team HTP Motorsport wasn’t present, they were doing a guest appearance in the 12 Hours of Mugello.
The most successful GT3 car of the new generation, the new Audi R8 LMS, was as well strongly represented at the Nürburgring testday. Land Motorsport had Timo Scheider and Marc Basseng get familiarized with their new car, their teammates Connor de Phillippi and Mike Rockenfeller also took part in the long distance classic in Sebring. For Phoenix Racing Anders Fjordbach had the cockpit of the Audi to himself and the Audi race experience hadChristopher Haase and Rahel Frey plus some of their customer pilots behing the steering wheel of their three R8s.
For the Audi’s sister brand Bentley the new alliance between ABT Sportsline and C Abt Racing brought two cars to the track in anticipation of their planned Nürburgring 24 Hours works blessed effort. Marco Holzer was the biggest surprise of the drivers taking a turn in the Bentley Continental GT3, with Christian Menzel, Fabian Hamprecht, Christer Jöns and Andreas Weishaupt also getting seat time.
The Nürburgring-Nordschleife season kicks off in earnest in around two weeks time with the VLN Season opener, the 62. ADAC Westfalenfahrt on April 2nd.
Soeren Herweg
