Hi,

on Monday, Manthey Motors had their Trackday. The whole Nordschleife for only 80 Porsche! Thats nice. No traffic, nice people and nice cars.

Christian, a friend of mine and administrator for my website were driving down together on Sunday from Hamburg.

Vanessa, my girlfriend and me stayed their for some days. I still love this place. Hamburg will always be the one of the best city for me in the world.

Of course, thats where I am coming from but also because it has so much to give to you.

In between driving on the Nordschleife, I had to do some

It was the first one for me and I had real fun driving different cars road cars on

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

Hi,
Yesterday I decided to visit the GT3 and GT4 Testday in Le Castellet.
The whether was amazing, …wellcome to the South of France ;-).

For the first time, I saw the new Audi R8 LMS.
It is a very nice car and it will be interesting to see how it will perform in it’s first year.

Dirk and Ernst from Phoenix Racing were here as well to see what’s going on. They will race with the R8 LMS in the German, Belgium and the Euro-Championship GT3.

I also met a view other people that I haven’t seen for a long time.
Good to be up to date again but always hard if you go to a racetrack without driving yourself!!!
But in a view days we have the first Test on the Nordschleife. Good that the winter is over and that the season starts again.

…IT’S TIME TO RACE

Will go for dinner now and after I am on my way back to Monaco…

Hi

finally back home in Monaco.

My last day in Tokyo was really nice. It’s amazing how big this city is. More than 12 million people are living here and even if you are in the 36th floor of a building, you can still see no city limits!

When we arrived around 12.00, we went to a private Porsche Garage from Katsumo. He runs the Porsche Club Roppongi.

It was as well very close to a famous buddhist temple in the old part of the city that we visited before lunch.

Once I had a view Sake with my Sukiyaki, that actually tasted really really good, we took a little walk and then went back to the Hotel.

You can see the photos I took from the last floor, what a view!

Still stuffed from lunch we went to a very famous sushi bar for dinner at 21.00. The chef is a race fan and visited the Nordschleife before.

I can’t remember when I had better sushi. My preference is Tuna and Salmon but since we got all kind of sushi on our plates, I found myself eating sea urchin nigiri. I have to say its not my favourite but I am proud to tried it ;-).

After digesting and a view more sake, the son of Komatsu, Kenichi and me went for one more drink at Akasaka (a district of Tokyo) before I went back to the Hotel.

Next day was very short, because Olaf and me where flying back at 13.30.

I bought some green tea and some algues at the airport and prepared myself for an other 12 hour flight.

After being home again, I have to say that I had a great time in Japan and looking forward to my next trip to there…..

Sayonara

Today was the final day of the event.

Not one day the whether was good enough to see the Mount Fuji. Everybody tells me how amazing it looks, but apparently it’s too foggy at the moment.

I can’t remember when I was driving so many different cars on one day. From a Porsche 964 to the latest 997 GT2/3. We were driving all 30 cars for 3 laps and teached all customers how to drive. I have to admit that I drove only one lap the ideal line and the other two more like rallye style. I had a fantastic time and the clients even more, easily too see on there faces ;-).

Oh, lunch improved about 100%. Beef and fries, thank you. …I do like Japanese food a lot but yesterday was not my favourite. Dinners are usally good and tomorrow night we will have a traditional meal, called Sukiyaki.

Now I am on my way back to the hotel for a last dinner before we go back to Tokyo tomorrow.

After leaving the Hotel this morning again at 6am, I am looking forward to my bed tonight and beeing able to sleep a bit longer….hopefully.

Yesterday, when we arrived in Fuji we went straight for dinner. Apparently it was rainy and already dark. Because of the jet-lag I only slept 4 hours and was already awake at 3.30am waiting for leaving to the Fuji racetrack at 6.00!
This is definately not my time 😉

Today we spent the whole rainy day on the track instructing and some “taxi driving” with a modified GT3 from Manthey. That was a lot of fun because of the wet track and therefore we were sliding all over the place.

Lunch was, let’s say: interesting.
…just watch the photo from Olaf and you can see what I mean ;-).

It was a real surprise seeing an old fan of mine, Tomoko. She heard about the Event and came over to join.

My second day is more less over and I have to say that I am very happy to be here.
It is interesting to see a different culture and learn about them.

Who knows, maybe one day I will get the chance to race again in Japan.

Date: 26-02 to 27-02.09

Fuji International Speedway
Racetrack – “Driving Experience” event.

http://www.fsw.tv/english/index.html

Hello everybody,
it’s still very new for me writing on my blog.
But with my iPhone and a Internet or data connection, it is very easy for me to give you sometimes an update about my racing and everything around that.

Because I am racing all over the world and have people following me from there, I decided to write in english.
I hope that my German speaking fans understand that. 😉

This time I will let you take part of my trip to Japan with Olaf Manthey…

After an 12 hours flight, we finally arrived in Tokyo. Olaf Manthey and me are invited from “Manthey-Motors Far East” to the Fuji Racetrack for a 2 day “Driving Experience” event.
I am really looking forward to it since my last time in Japan was in 1998. Back than, Jean-Marc Gounon and me were driving the 1000km of Suzuka with a Mercedes CLK-GT. It’s still one of my favourite tracks.
We had a fantastic time and the race was real fun but as often we couldn’t really see anything from the Country.

I am really curious about all the different impressions I will get from Japan in the next 5 days…

Here are some links:

Manthey Motors Far East

Fuji International Speedway