Frikadelli Racing bounced back from second place at the opening race of the season to Victory last Saturday, 1,028 days after their last triumph, Earl Bamber and Mathieu Jaminet celebrated victory at the 62nd Eibach ADAC ACAS Cup in the Porsche 911 GT3 R.
For the team from Barweiler, not far from the Nürburgring, it is the eighth overall victory in the Nordschleife championship. The team had two reasons to celebrate because in second place Patrick Pilet and Maxime Martin made a successful racing day for Frikadelli Racing perfect. “We showed what we can do,” said team boss Klaus Abbelen with satisfaction after crossing the finish line.
After an exciting four hours of racing through the Green Hell, Klaus Bachler and Martin Ragginger in their Falken-Porsche were happy about third place. The Porsche dominance in the third race of the season underpinned Michael Christensen and Lars Kern Manthey-Elfer in fourth place overall.
On Saturday morning Jens Klingmann, ‘Jesse Krohn’, Alexander Sims and Stef Dusseldorp in the BMW M6 GT3 from Schubert Motorsport grabbed pole position in the qualifying practice, which was interrupted twice and then shortened. In the race, however, the leadership of the BMW quartet only lasted a little more than one lap before Bamber conceded the BMW at the start of lap two. “The result is fantastic for the team – and of course great preparation for the 24h race at the Nürburgring,” said Bamber. “We are on the right track with our development.” Jaminet added: “It may have looked easy, but no race win is easy. We wanted this one-two and are really happy that we did it. ”
The Falken team has not necessarily been spoiled for success in the recent past. “To finally be on the podium again after two tough years is an amazing feeling – and that with such strong GT3 competition,” said Bachler. “Our engineers from Japan are currently unable to come to the race track in Germany and are excited from afar. The analyzes and discussions then take place via video conference, even if it is long after midnight. ”
Behind the top quartet, the two BMW M6 GT3s from ROWE Racing were classified in fifth and sixth. Three Audi R8 LMS from Land Motorsport, Phoenix-Racing and Car Collection followed in seventh to ninth place. The top 10 was completed by the Mercedes-AMG HRT Team Bilstein.
The best GT3-Am car was driven for the second time in a row by Janine Shoffner and Moritz Kranz for GetSpeed in 20th place. The fastest Pro-Am team, Lionspeed by Car Collection, with drivers Lorenzo Rocco, Patrick Kolb, came 23rd. Patric Niederhauser and Johannes Stengel cross the finish line in the Audi R8 LMS.
One of the heroes of the first hour of racing was Nico Menzel in the Porsche 911 GT3 R from Huber Motorsport. The 23-year-old mixed with the Pro-Am car that he shared with Philipp Neuffer, Stefan Aust and Alex Müller in the top group and drove up to second place on lap seven. Above all, he demonstrated a keen sense for spectacular overtaking manoeuvres, especially when he left the Falken-Porsche, a ROWE-BMW and the Schubert-BMW behind on lap three. In the end, the quartet took third place in the class.
Thomas Mutsch, Felipe Fernandez-Laser and Franck Mailleux drove a subdued Nordschleife debut in 2021 in the SCG 004c from Glickenhaus Racing. With 9: 03.953 minutes behind the leaders, the trio with the fiery red small-series sports car couldn’t get past 21st place.
Successful comeback of the Stuck brothers: Together with Reinhard Kofler, Ferdinand and Johannes Stuck won the CupX class with the KTM X-Bow GTX from True Racing. Victory in Cup3 (Cayman GT4 Trophy by Manthey Racing) went to Thorsten Jung and Oskar Sandberg for Mühlner Motorsport. In Cup5 (BMW M2 CS Racing), Francesco Merlini, Yannick Fübrich and David Griessner triumphed for the Adrenalin Motorsport Team Alzner Automotive.
The fastest TCR vehicle was driven by the two Nordschleife specialists Marc Basseng and Manuel Lauck in 42nd place out of 154 vehicles that had entered the race. With the Hyundai Elantra N TCR, they lost just two laps to the top. The duo drove the fastest lap in 8: 40.053 minutes, a new TCR lap record in the Nürburgring endurance series.
The fourth race of the Nürburgring endurance series, the 52nd Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy, will take place on June 26th. In the meantime, a number of teams from the Nordschleife Championship will contest the ADAC 24h race on the Nürburgring from June 3rd to 8th.
