My last 3 weeks were very busy. My girlfriend and me went to Cairo to see the pyramids, than a trip to Croatia for some business and now getting ready to go to the Nürburgring. The Home of Motorsport in Germany 😉 .

Cairo was very impressive, but I will tell you more another time. Here in Monaco everything and everybody gets crazy because of the F1 GP weekend. As much as I like it to be here to meet up with old friends and party, I rather prefer to go to the Nordschleife and try to kick a.. with my teammates 😉 . I am excited like the first time in 2003. Some races have this amazing charisma and the 24h of the Nordschleife is definitely one of them!!!

I will try to give you an update over the weekend. As well my good old friend and administrator Christian is there again with his friend and he will probably publish some pics etc. over the weekend. He came to every 24h race and cant’t get enough from it….like me!

So guys, get slowly into the racemode and enjoy what’s coming….

Marcel

Attached you will find some Pictures of the 24h Race 2006 and 2007.
Hope to see you again this year @ the Ring.

Hi,

isn’t it funny, this year we had already so money weird races. But this one tops the other two before.

Qualifying was really good for us. With an 8:24.16 we were standing on pole. I was just a bit disappointed with the Audi’s, because I expected them faster than 8:28.96! I am not convinced that they show there full potential.

The race itself started good with Marc leading the field and after the Mamerow car lost some cooling fluid and retired + that the Alzen car and too Audi crashed because of that we had bigger gap between us and the second.

For my stint it was the same. While there was a lot yellows out there I was able to keep the gap consistent before I handled the car over to Marc for the last time.

We were than back to P2 because Audi pitted 2 Laps earlier than us and took the lead. I was confident we will take the lead back again on the last quick pit-stop. We had to come in for a splash and dash and we thought the 81 Audi as well but instead, they stayed out there was absolutely no chance to catch them. So for the last race-lap we came right behind the 77 Audi and Marc was able to push really hard and overtook Marc Basseng (after the race he was really upset with his self about that. I asked him why? because he should be used to it after last year. Either it was Marc or me who did this to him than ;-)). Of course it was a joke, but a true one!)

The 81 got slower and slower and at the end we were right behind him, before he went into the Pits to let us win!!!

How strange is that? Did they really messed up their whole strategy or did they wanted us to win, so maybe they get some more weight out of the car or something else? I am not sure anymore but it looked really strange to me… As well the qualify-times should have been quicker. A Porsche Cup car was just 3 sec slower than the slowest Audi with a 8:31.48.

Of course there is a lot speculation and we know how much they want to win the 24h. The Balance of Performance is making it really difficult to show the full potential. Especially if you have a good chance to get some advantage out

of that ;-).

All this will stop as soon as the 24h is started at 16.00!

Don’t forget, we get more and more hungry to win the race again and of course we will push as hard as them and even harder but fair!

Hi everybody,

I guess most of you had a great party yesterday. I am just sitting in the Hotel am Tiergarten. There was always free Wifi but now they really improved it and its available in all the rooms. So now I am sitting in my room at the window, facing the Nordschleife section Tiergarten and writing you a view lines.

When it comes to racing, nothing special happened to me the last 2 weeks. It just looks like we will have a sunny weekend and not like the last one 😉 We had all conditions, so its perfect preparation for the 24h.

My good friend and administrator did a great work last week to put in some extra interviews that some great guys always doing on the race weekend. You should also check out there side and other videos…..

Yeah, racing wise nothing happened but privately, yes…My sister Fabienne had a her Civil Wedding in Vitznau, Switzerland. Great place at the Immensee. It was a absolute fantastic weekend. We had a great party and celebrated tiil early morning ;-)). My other sister got married last year and I have to say that her party was as well amazing.

Strange feeling that my sisters are both married now, but their husbands are pretty cool, so I am happy for both of them.

I am promised them, that I take them both around the Nordschleife one day. Let’s see if they can take it!!! ;-).

My girlfriend and me decided to go one day earlier to Vitznau for some hiking. It was beautiful. We went up the “queen of the Mountains” the Mount Riggi. We had a great time up there. We both love the mountains, so it couldn’t be better to start the “Party weekend”.

With some discipline to go running in between at the Immensee, it was also possible to handle the good Wine. 😉

Anyhow guys, I would like to tell you more but Claudia from Manthey Racing needs me for some things, so I will get back to you soon…

Ciao

Interview with vln-fanpage.de (german)

It didn’t look that good for us on Saturday morning. Already on Friday we found out that we do have a problem with our rain tires when its under 15 degrees celsius. The car is just snapping on the rear end, caused by the tires loosing the grip suddenly and leaves us with massive oversteer in fast corners.

So we were prepared to work on it in the qualifying session. But than when Romain Dumas was on his first timed lap, at Wehrseifen he was just rolling out with a problem. At the end we found out that there was something wrong with a shaft between the differential and Gearbox.

So no time for us and starting from the rear in the first group.

To make it short, our tire problem was still there and we lost more than 2 minutes in the first half of the race.

When I jumped in the car, we tried a different set of tires and also modified the car. This was supposed to give us a better balance.

At the beginning of my stint, I was able to hold the pace while I was fighting with a Porsche Cup car. Later I found out that it was Christopher Mies. He did a great job and was probably happy to play with me and the green and yellow Porsche  😉 . But there I could see again how dramatic our problem was. He could take a speed into the fast curves, I was dreaming about!

But my time was coming, because with slightly drying condition the rain tires and our modifications started to work great and I was able to catch up to the front by nearly 10-15 sec a lap. That put me into P2.

Near the end, I had to come in for a splash and dash and a new set of rain tires. After that we actually lost our position to Audi that by than was driving 10 seconds faster than me.

Still we managed to end up P3 coming from the back of the field!

I think we learned a lot this rainy weekend and we know, that we have to work closer with Michelin to give us the tires we need. Temperatures at the end of May in the night won’t be much higher and to win the 24h again we need to solve that problem.

Overall I believe that with the “Balance of Performance” the GT3 cars are in a slightly better situation than us for the moment…..apparently.

More work and preparation has to be done….! 😉

Marcel

…a rainy cold day.

With 7 degree celsius, we had a hard time to get our tires to work. The Grip level was below drivable. Every time you tried to push out of the corners the Traction control (TC) started to work and even on the straight in 5th gear it always kicked in. On a Grand Prix track its better. First, you don’t have different asphalts and a track that has a lot of bumps, jumps etc. and second the safety is much higher. Even if you push to the limit and spin you mostly end up in a run off area or a grabble bed. On the Nordschleife that means barrier or wall! No good.

This kind of weather conditions you usually don’t find anywhere else than on our Nürburgring Nordschleife.

Tomorrow I hope that at least the temperature is higher, so I can get more feedback from the tires. The weather, lets see.

Hi,

I already arrived yesterday afternoon at the Nürburgring. Sunny and nice. But today it seems to rain the whole day.

I heard it should be better tomorrow. Let’s see.

Still sitting in the Hotel am Tiergarten and surf a bit the net. I heard that Audi was testing the last 3 days on the Nordschleife. I guess they still looking for the right Setup.

To be honest, its only 5 weeks to go before the 24h and slowly I get more and more excited about it. For me it is such an important thing. If we could win it again, I would be the only one who won it 5 times times and with Timo Bernhard together 4times in a row.

But there are the Audis the other Porsches and many others that don’t want to see us winning again…

But there are 24h to go…

But we can do mistakes…

But we don’t know if our car is fast enough because of the new “Balance of Performance”…

Too many “buts” so I guess we have to stay focused, push like no tomorrow and not dreaming too much. ;-))

…otherwise we have to try again and again and again. That’s in hour blood, right?

see ya

I thought you might like this one.

It’s was at the end of the final day in Fuji and it seems to be a typical japanese thing to do after a successful Event…;-)

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Hi,
what a first race!!!
Let’s start at the qualifying. I went out first on a used set. I told you yesterday that we solved the ABS problem over night. Yes we did but now the system was regulating all the time. That felt like braking on ice. I guess most of you know what I mean… 😉 my braking was double the length.

We changed the Black box and than it was fine.
To make it short, my second Lap on a new set of Michelin was good enough to be on pole…. At least until 20 min before the end. Than of course at the end with less traffic, times improved and Timo was able to drive a 8,26, 6th position.

Timo than started because he won’t do more races before the 24h. So like this he had more driving time. I will drive all races, so it’s cool for me.
After the first lap he came back 2nd.

My stint was pretty good. The first laps I had a lot of yellows. Adenauer Forst, Metzgersfeld and some more. The Lambo must have just started to burn like crazy when I passed. It looked pretty bad and I guess the car is gone?!
Today we had a lot of beginners, I had to incidents that ended up close in the wall if I wouldn’t reacted fast enough 😉

It’s anyway much harder now to pass. With less power and loosing more than 25 km/h on the straight we have to risk more than before.

With a lot of other cars having reliability problems and accidents, we could bring home our first victory this year.

YES, WE DID IT AGAIN!!! ;-))))

Can’t wait for VLN2!!!