On Saturday the VLN launches its 40th season with a full starting grid. The opening round has over 180 cars slated to be on the grid, of which over 30 will be FIA GT3 cars. Let’s start with the works supported cars.
First up, the three Mercedes-AMG supported teams AMG Team Black Falcon, AMG Team HTP and the Haribo Racing Team AMG.
In all Mercedes-AMG GT3, the driver crews for the 24 Hours Nürburgring Nordschleife will take the wheel.
AMG Team Black Falcon: Bernd Schneider, Maro Engel, Adam Christodoulou plus Manuel Metzger and Hubert Haupt, Yelmer Buurman, Nico Bastian and Dirk Müller.
AMG team HTP has so far only entered Thomas Jäger and Stefan Mucke for its two Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Haribo Racing Team AMG : Jan Seyffarth, Uwe Alzen, Lance David Arnold and Maximilian Götz .
Audi has significantly reduced this year’s factory support, which is why the Phoenix Racing and Team WRT only use a single factory supported Audi R8 LMS apiece.
Audi Sport Team Phoenix will start with Christopher Haase and Laurens Vanthoor.
Sister VAG company Bentley is running with the new alliance between Abt Sportsline and C.Abt Racing, the collaboration will enter the Nürburgring 24 Hours with two Bentley Continental GT3.
To prepare for the race the team has entered two Bentley’s for Christer Jöns, Christopher Brück, Steven Kane, Christian Menzel, Guy Smith, Marco Holzer and Fabian Hamprecht.
For the first time Porsche enters the Nürburging 24 Hours with a full fledged works entry using two of the new Porsche 911 GT3 R. In its first preparation start for the assault Patrick Pilet, Earl Bamber, Joerg Bergmeister and Fred Makowiecki will be behind the wheel of the two 911s.
BMW Motorsport also is starting the final phase of its prep work for the Nürburgring 24 Hours with the two work teams ROWE Racing and Schubert Motorsport having entered two BMW M6 GT3 each.
Apart from Nicky Catsburg, who is on FIA WTCC Duty, and Alexander Sims, all the other ROWE Racers will drive on Saturday, this being Richard Westbrook, Markus Palttala, Klaus Graf, Philipp Eng, Maxime Martin and Dirk Werner.
At Schubert Motorsport Augusto Farfus, Jörg Müller, Lucas Luhr and Jens Klingmann will handle driving duties.
In addition the works supported cars there are around 15 other GT3 car of private teams entered for VLN season opener, including some small surprises. The partnership between Porsche and Falken Motorsport has opened up a new chapter with the new Porsche 911 GT3 R. The Japanese tyre manufacturers will take up the 62nd ADAC Westfalenfahrt with Peter Dumbreck, Alexandre Imperatori and Martin Ragginger.
The Frikadelli Racing Team will race with Klaus Abbelen, Norbert Siedler and Patrick Huisman behind the steering wheel, while Manthey Racing has also entered two privateer Porsche 911 GT3 R in addition to the two works 911. It’s Otto Klohs and “Dieter Schmidtmann” in one of the Porsche 911 GT3 R and the Porsche Wochenspiegel has Georg Weiss, Oliver Kainz, Jochen Krumbach and Mike Stursberg handling driving duties.
At Mercedes-AMG, two other private AMG GT3 are on the grid. Black Falcon has an additional customer car to be driven by Abdulaziz al Faisal, “Gerwin” and Indy Dontje.
The MANN FILTER Team Zakspeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 is slated to be shared by Kenneth Heyer, Sebastian Asch and Luca Ludwig.
HTP Motorsport has entered an additional Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 for Moritz Oestreich, son of former DTM pilot Markus Oestreich.
Walkenhorst Motorsport also relies (in part!) on an old GT3 entering its BMW Z4 GT3, to be driven by team boss Henry Walkenhorst and Peter Posavac. In addition, the team also brings two new BMW M6 GT3 to the Nürburgring, with Christian Krognes, Victor Bouveng, Matias Henkola and Michele di Martino entered to drive.
The Audi R8 LMS is very popular with the customer teams, after all, five of the Ingolstadt sports car take on the race. At Montaplast by Land Motorsport team the preparation for the 24-hour race is the main priority, with the regular drivers Connor de Phillippi and Marc Basseng joined by the two DTM drivers Timo Scheider and Mike Rockenfeller. Stuart Leonard and Edward Sandström will drive a customer Audi R8 LMS entered by Team WRT. Phoenix Racing has entered Frank Stippler in its full season Audi R8 LMS. Chris Mamerow has joined Twin Busch Motorsport and shares the new car with the twins Marc and Dennis Busch. Rounding out the Audi fleet is Car Collection Motorsport with a single R8 for Peter Schmidt, Andreas Ziegler and John Siegler.
The exotic car in the GT3 class is clearly the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 entered by Konrad Motorsport, the Italian sports car turning its first Nordschleife laps this weekend and has Christopher Zöchling signed up to drive.
Not only the top group in the form of class SP9 for GT3 cars of the VLN is richly filled with interesting vehicles. In the SPX class the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus has decided to enter a single SCG003C and the older P4/5 Competizione. The first race car produced by the team of James Glickenhaus, the P4 / 5 Competizione is slated to be driven by Manuel Lauck, Franco Mailleux and Felipe Fernández Laser. The SCG003C will have Thomas Mutsch, Jeff Westphal and Andreas Simonsen behind the steering wheel.
The Lexus RC F GT3 is also running in the SPX class due to its missing GT3 homologation with Lexus Racing and Farnbacher Racing each entering a single car each once again. Lexus Racing (run by the Emil Frey Racing outfit) has Stephane Ortelli and Lorenz Frey in the cockpit and Farnbacher Racing trusts in the brothers Mario and Dominik Farnbacher.
The Ford GT of Alzen Racing is another car now with a missing GT3 homologation in the SPX class, here it will be Philipp Wlazik and Jürgen Alzen handling the car. Rounding out the class SPX there are two Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport entered by Manthey Racing.
Aston Martin Racing isn’t present with its Vantage V12 GT3 but their works drivers Fernando Rees and Marco Sorenson will be running this Saturday in a Aston Martin V8 Vantage N24 in order to gain experience in the Green Hell. Another driver new to the Nordschleife is BMW DTM racer Tom Blomqvist, who’ll be in one of the Walkenhorst M6s at the Nürburgring 24 Hours but will drive a BMW M235iR this coming Saturday.
Soeren Herweg
