Pixum Team Adrenalin Motorsport retained the overall VLN title but with a different crew to that which scored success in 2018.
The new champions are Yannick Fübrich and David Griessner who took their seventh class win in the BMW M240i Racing Cup at the season finale, VLN9, beating off the title challenges from their team mates Philipp Leisen, Danny Brink and Christopher Rink as well as Torsten Kratz, Oliver Frisse and Moran Gott of Team Avia Sorg Rennsport.
Griessner also secured the VLN junior championship, Leisen, Brink and Rink meanwhile took the VLN Production Car Trophy.
The overall race winners of VLN9, the 44th DMV Münsterlandpokal meanwhile were Patrick Assenheimer and Maro Engel in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Black Falcon Team AutoArena Motorsport.
Once again the VLN dealt out drama right to the end, on the last lap, Lars Kern was in the race lead with his Manthey-Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R when he had a collision with a car that he was about to lap.
He still made it to the finish in his damaged “Grello” #911 but finished only sixth.
Patrick Assenheimer and Maro Engel carried off the victory even though they had already buried all hopes to gain a top-three position due to an unscheduled stop at the beginning of the race.
The radiator grille of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 had collected some leaves which had to be removed by the Black-Falcon mechanics after the engine temperature had become too high.
“That was something that we had not expected”, said Assenheimer. “Our day had already started quite modestly after our slight collision in qualifying. Our team made all efforts for us to be able to still complete a fast lap. Then the unscheduled stop in the race after only one lap. That was not very encouraging. In my stint, I had no idea where we were and I was of course positively surprised at the end.”
The same issue accounted for the hopes of the sister car of Adam Christodoulou, Hubert Haupt and Dirk Muller who pitted from the lead after taking pole, taking the short cut into the pits with engine temperature soaring, the issue apparently caused by the Safety Car blowing leaves from the track into the path of the following racers.
With the fourth win scored by Assenheimer in the current season, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 with start number 6 took the title in the ROWE Speed Trophy by VLN. Into second position finished the Audi R8 LMS of Phoenix Racing #5. Vincent Kolb and Frank Stippler finished the final race second ahead of Christian Krognes, David Pittard and Jody Fannin in the BMW M6 GT3 of Walkenhorst Motortsport.
The top four were completed by Michele Beretta, Steve Jans and Kim Louis Schramm in the second Phoenix-Audi, they also won the Pro-Am classification in SP9. Hubert Haupt, Adam Christoudoulou and Dirk Müller finished fifth in the second Black-Falcon Mercedes-AMG.
The Falken-Porsche of Sven Müller and Patrick Pilet took the chequered flag in second place. Due to a yellow flag infringement, however, a 185-second penalty was imposed on the duo after the race so that they are finally classified in seventh place.
