An exciting race day at the sixth VLN round saw Lance-David Arnold, Jan Seyffarth and Uwe Alzen take the victory for the Haribo Racing Team. The trio in their Goldbear-racer took the lead for the first time during the fourth lap, but gave it up just a few minutes later in order to prevent a splash and dash at the end.
Over the course of the race the lead changed hands repeatedly between the Haribo-Mercedes, the Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS of Frank Stippler and Anders Fjordbach and the Walkenhorst Motorsport trio Christian Krognes, Jörg Müller and Victor Bouveng.
With consistently fast lap times Arnold, Seyffarth and Alzen were able to build a lead of about one minute, in the final laps Uwe Alzen managed the lead and crossed the line about 12 seconds ahead of the runner-up.
“After the qualifying we already said to ourselves that this could be a tough race, because the field was so fast and still so tight. In the end we had to ask Uwe to safe fuel in order to avoid an additional splash and dash stop, and even in driving slow Uwe is a very good guy,” said Lance-David Arnold after the race.
Qualifying saw a surprise performance by Christian Krognes aboard the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3, putting in a time of 7:56.642 minutes which was the fastest ever qualifying lap in the VLN track trim consisting of the Nordschleife and the short loop of the GP track. After the race start Krognes was able to take the lead, but lost it after three laps first to the TwinBusch Audi and then to the Haribo Mercedes.
Along with his teammates Jörg Müller and Victor Bouveng, Christian Krognes was overjoyed with their performance: “Today was a perfect race day, my lap in qualifying was certainly unique and I was happy to be the fastest driver in a field of so many established GT3 drivers. Although towards the end of the race we were able to close the gap to the Haribo car, I think we didn’t have a real chance of challenging them towards the end of the race.”
Jordan Tresson, Michele di Martino and Matias Henkola gave Walkenhorst Motorsport a double podium, by finishing third.
“For us three, it is the first overall podium, so obviously we are happy. Today we all put in a faultless effort and I hope we can continue this form in the coming races,” said Henkola.
The final race lap saw Peter Dumbrack taking fourth place for Falken Motorsports, by hauling his Porsche 911 GT3 R he shared with Alexandre Imperatori past the Audi R8 LMS of TwinBusch Motorsport.
Behind the Audi it was the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Black Falcon finishing sixth, ahead of the Porsche 911 GT3 R of the Wochenspiegel Team Manthey. Walkenhorst Motorsport’s BMW Z4 GT3 crossed the line in eigth, with the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup MR of Frank Kräling, Christopher Brück and Marc Gindorf finishing ninth. Dominik and Mario Farnbacher in their Lexus RC-F GT3 rounded out the Top 10.
There was also an influx of international GT drivers into the 39th RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen. Audi Sport TT Cup racer Josh Caygill shared a BMW M235i Racing Cup with Rory Butcher and Jazeman Jaafar. Lorenz Frey and Stephane Ortelli didn’t finish the first race lap when their Lexus RC-F GT3 crashed at the Brünnchen. Otto Klohs and Sven Müller had to retire their Porsche 911 GT3 R early on in the race after multiple punctures.
Fellow Porsche Junior Dennis Olsen drove a Porsche Cayman in order to obtain the A-Level Nordschleifen-Permit. Jamie Chadwick and Ahmad Al Harthy crossed the line in 63rd place aboard their Aston Martin V8 Vantage N24.
The next VLN race takes place in two weeks time, the ROWE ADAC 6h ADAC Ruhr-Pokal-Rennen is the season highlight, running over a extended distance of six instead of the usual four hours.
