Protyre News

Klaus Bachler and Martin Ragginger soared to victory at the 41st RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen in their Porsche 911 GT3 R, pipping their teammates and race rivals, Stef Dusseldorp and Alexandre Imperatori in their BMW M6 GT3. This was the first one-two win in the VLN for the team of the Japanese tyre manufacturer and one to take inspiration from heading into the Round 7, the 58th ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen, on September 22nd.

In the very first metres of the race, Bachler went into the lead ahead of pole sitter David Pittard in the BMW M6 GT3 and the second lap, he secured himself a place in the history books setting a new VLN lap record with a time of 7:56.259 minutes. “That was quite a perfect lap”, Austrian driver Bachler said with a big smile on his face. “Everything has to be perfect to achieve this. On the last metres, I was lucky that I managed to pass the slowest cars already at Döttinger Höhe whilst my rivals still had suffered with the traffic at Tiergarten.”

Aside from Dusseldorp and Imperatori in the sister car, Sheldon van der Linde and Jeffrey Schmidt in the Audi R8 LMS were the only ones who were able to rival the performance of the Falken-Porsche. In lap 15, the leading car of Land Motorsport had tyre damage issues, preventing them from winning the race overall. “We would of course have been delighted to win the race”, said Dusseldorp. “And the team had allowed us to push to the maximum. But finally, the Porsche was simply faster. From the team’s perspective, the one-two win is the most important. And we are extremely pleased with our result.”

The Lamborghini drivers were relieved to take 3rd place. “At last, a result in the top three”, said Brück. “This could well have happened already in VLN race three, four or five. Unfortunately, we had a smaller or bigger problem every time so that it is only today that we were able to score that deserved result.
Outside the top three, Steve Jans, Marek Böckmann, Philip Hamprecht and Adam Osieka drove the fastest GT3-Premium class car. The Porsche 911 GT3 R of the GIGASPEED Team GetSpeed Performance took the chequered flag in fourth place.

Finishing fifth was the Team AutoArena Motorsport in their Mercedes-AMG GT3, followed by the Frikadelli Racing Team (Porsche) and Walkenhorst Motorsport (BMW). The two H&R-Spezialfedern teams took the eighth and ninth places and the top ten was completed by Ralf Schall who celebrated in class H4 at the same time his 101st class win, as usual in a team with Christopher Gerhard, in the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (997).
 

So how did this affect the top of the standings?

By claiming their sixth victory in the sixth race, Christian Kohlhaas and Stephan Köhler moved into the championship lead. Whilst the Ferrari duo was victorious, unfortunately the leaders going into the sixth round of the VLN Endurance Championship, Norbert Fischer, Christian Konnerth and Daniel Zils had to retire their Porsche Cayman from Pixum Team Adrenalin Motorsport after only six laps.

Håkon Schjærin, Atle Gulbrandsen and Kenneth Østvold claimed their second successive victory in the TCR class in their Audi RS 3 LMS. Østvold marked his tenth, class win, with Formula 1 commentator Gulbrandsen celebrating his 14th and Schjærin his 23rd. Benedikt Gentgen, Martin Pischinger and Lukas Thiele in another Seat entered by FEV Racing moved into third position.

The seventh round of the VLN endurance championship Nürburgring gets underway in three weeks, on September 22nd. The 58th ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen will run over the traditional distance of four hours.
 

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