Hi,

sorry that I get back to you that late but I was traveling all the time. After the last race I stayed in Germany/ Hamburg for some business and private stuff. As well, yesterday I was at the Manthey Trackday.

But lets talk about to the 4th race of the VLN.

We really struggled in Qualifying. The car was exactly the same as in the 24h but Michelin gave us different set of tires, that didn’t work out that well. To explain it shortly: In the front we had a lot of grip and in the back it was extremely loose.

…massive oversteer at turn in.

That also explains, why we only started from 5th position.

For the race we found a set of tires that worked well for us last year. So we decided to start on that. I was sure it couldn’t be worth than what we had for the qualifying.

I had a good start and went directly to 4th position before the first corner. We were all very close together and were fighting hard for our positions. When we came to the Breidscheid Brige I could attack Chris Mamerow. I braked really late for the left and passed him. Same happened with Dirk Adorf. When we came to the Brünnchen I knew I have to take the chance again on the brakes and it worked out well again. You probably can imagine how good it felt to finally be again the starting driver and making my way thru from 5th to 2nd position!

With Mark Basseng it was no different. I already knew that my car was strong on the brakes and at turn in. So coming to the NordschleifeI could take some more speed for the slow left corner  and outbreak Mark.

From there on I had a clean Lap and until the end of my stint I was leading by around 20 sec.

That felt good 😉 .

When Arno took over, after a view laps the race was red flagged. By than we were in second position. It was Arno’s first race since lat year and I think he did a very good job also considering that we had the problem on Friday and in Qualifying.

Now it was again up to me to trying to gain back first and finish the race.

The restart was ok but I had no chance to pass the Ford with Thomas Mutsch on the wheel. He was extremely strong and I think we could really see the full potential of the Ford GT. I could only follow for one lap but than my laptimes dropped and I was lost lap by lap some time. We knew that their third driver Hermann Tilke still needed to drive and will probably jump into the car for the last 3 or 4 laps.

So I was continuing pushing to be on the safe side and by the time we had a our splash and dash for the last 3 laps we got back first position.

As you can see on the picture below, it was not an easy one….

but

it was a fantastic race for me starting twice and being able to make my way thru first in 2 laps. Especially with all the strong cars and drivers now.

I know the next race is only 4 days away and I will do my best to give you my view of the race  earlier than this time. 😉

Marcel

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