Radiant faces on the top step of the award ceremony podium in brilliant sunshine at the Nürburgring: Kévin Estre, Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor drove to victory in the Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R at the VLN season opener. After 28 laps (4: 07: 04,241 hours), the trio's lead over second-placed Markus Winkelhock and Nico Müller, who drove an Audi R8 LMS for Audi Sport Team BWT, was 51,838 seconds. Third was Klaus Bachler and Sven Müller in the Porsche 911 GT3 R from Falken Motorsport.
"Great, finally my first win on the Nordschleife", New Zealander Bamber was happy about the success. It was also a first for Vanthoor, who set the fastest time in qualifying with a time of 8: 03,070 minutes. The Belgian celebrated the first Porsche victory of his career: "Finally, I had to wait for more than a year. And then with 'Grello' in the Green Hell - terrific. "The Manthey trio dominated the action at the top over the entire distance. "It was not a walk, though," said Estre. "The Nordschleife is always a challenge and it is guaranteed never boring."
The first race in 2018 was a good start for Audi works driver Müller, who competes in the DTM for Ingolstadt. "I started in the Mücke team for the first time and I'm thrilled," he said. “The car was perfectly prepared and we really had a good race. However, the qualifying was rather difficult because we had problems getting through the traffic smoothly. ”The training for the VLN kick-off started in the morning with around 40 minutes delay due to fog with 180 vehicles.
Third place of Bachler and Müller in the Falken-Porsche was due mainly to the brilliant strategy of the team. "We made an early pit stop," said Bachler. "As a result, we fell back to twelfth place and were able to fight forward again with fast lap times."
Behind the top trio, Audi Sport Team Land took fourth place. The best Mercedes-AMG GT3 drove the Mercedes-AMG Team HTP in fifth place. Fastest BMW M6 GT3 was the start number 98 of ROWE Racing. Thus, all four German car manufacturers in the GT3 class finished the race in the Top 10.
For the first time this season, the GT3 class SP9 is divided into three sub-categories, which are evaluated individually. The overall winners of the race won the Professional rating. First winners of the new SP9 Premium standings are Steve Jans and Marek Böckmann in the Porsche 911 GT3 R of the GIGASPEED Team GetSpeed Performance. "Great that it worked right away," Böckmann was pleased. "That makes us want more and lets us hope for the next races." Jans praised his new, permanent team-mate. "Our speed was good and we were competitive. Marek did a great job. We are in very good harmony, both on and off the track. "Henry Walkenhorst, Rudi Adams and Andreas Ziegler won the SP9 Masters classification in the BMW M6 GT3.
The fastest Cup Porsche was driven by Marcel Hoppe, Moritz Kranz and Tim Scheerbarth for Mühlner Motorsport. Olaf Beckmann, Peter Hass and Volker Strycek were honored with the iconic Opel Manta. The best pilots of the VLN production car classes were Norbert Fischer, Christian Konnerth and Daniel Zils with the Porsche Cayman of Pixum Team Adrenalin Motorsport.
First leaders of the 2018 season are Bamber / Estre / Vanthoor. As the winner of the class SP9, with 19 opponents, they secured 9,75 points for the drivers' championship. Second are Yannick Fübrich and David Griessner as the winners of the BMW M235i Racing Cup class (9,74 points) ahead of Carsten Knechtges and Marcel Manheller (9,71 points), who won the V4 class in the Manheller Racing BMW.
The second round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring starts at the 7. April 2018. The 43. DMV 4-hour race of the RG Düren leads over the usual distance of four hours.
Complete result: https://www.vln.de/wp-content/uploads/results/2018-03-24r.html Picture credits, all photos: S. Baldauf / SB-Medien