Race 2

Starting from position 17 we had no specific expectations for today. The track was damp at the start due to a little rain. But it wasn´t enough to start with slick tires.

The start was relatively normal and all cars were heading to the famous “Hatzenbachbogen”. Driving on full throttle I got a hit on the back of the car. Wolfgang Kaufmann in his Viper was the one. And it brought a disadvantage to our Ascari. Our left exhaust was damaged and we lost even more power. Now I was in the middle of the pack around position 15 I think. And it was hard to fight against the others with our dull weapon.

After half of the race I was pitting and Norman was running the second part of the race. He should try to improve our position against the weaker drivers. And he was doing well coming further into the front. But then a fire on the back appeared. After the Vipercrash some carbon-fibred parts inflamed. Shortly before the end of the race it started to rain again and that was good for Norman. In that part of the pack, he was the fastest. Unfortunately Ritskes touched our car and forced him to spin. Norman went into the finish on 11th position. Winners have been Matzke/Wirth with their Alpina BMW again.

No points but a finish on Sunday. That’s what counting for us. But I have to mention, that none of the guys who crashed into us was coming to excuse that weekend. Mistakes could happen but they should learn to stand for them. For the final round we got some new ideas running the qualification. So let´s see how it goes. Something really nice that weekend have been all the fan support at the crowded track. Thank you!

The car has survived and some weeks of break are waiting. I will spend some days on holiday with my wife. Ready for the Baltic sea. At the beginning of October we are heading to Oschersleben for the final. Our first race there was not that bad, so let´s see.

Yours Roland.

Race 1

Saturday means first raceday for us. As usual at 12 o´clock it was all about one hour of race action. Starting from p10, our hopes were higher for that race than for tomorrow. At the start we had a dry track. But it was cold and very windy. Rain forecast was about 20-30%.

Norman was the first of us in the car and was doing well when the lights went green at the start. Positionend 9th he turned into the first corner, but got a hit on the right rear from Luca Ludwig. The speed was gone and some opponents overtook him. Two turns later Norman was risking too much and spun completely. We had luck that nobody crashed into our Ascari. Now he was dead last and it just could get even better. He tried to catch up positions and that brought him into 19th place after two laps. And he went on. After 10 laps he was 14th but the gap to the lead was about 30 seconds already. In the same position he came in for a late pit-stop.

Immediately when I jumped into the car some raindrops came down from the sky. But this was it. No more rain appeared. Just after some corners I mentioned that Norman had pushed hard with the car. The tires were not in best shape anymore. So I had to fight even harder to improve positions. Due to a crash of Kox and Herndlhofer in turn one, I went into 12th position then. Shortly I was attacking the green Viper in 11th and took that position fast. Otherwise it would have cost too much time. My lap-times have been o.k. so far especially if you look on our top speed. We are the slowest on that part. 12km/h we are losing to the leaders. That should cost us a second each lap. After that, Tim Bergmeister with his Porsche stopped at the track and we went into the top ten. At the finish line I was 9th with a gap of 38 seconds to the lead. Winners were Matzke and Wirth in their Alpina in front of Ludwig/Mies. Remembering that they crashed into us at the start, you could imagine what would have been possible.

After the race two opponents in front of us got a penalty that brought us into a final 7th position. So all the catching up was rewarded with two points in the championship results. Great for the team which had a lot of work throughout the last weeks. Big thanks to them. The engine works without any problems.

Now we are working on the collected data from today, trying to improve the balance again for tomorrow. When it´s full attack again.

Keep the fingers crossed!

Two races in line with GT1 world championship

Our championship-heats 11 & 12 will be held this weekend. Norman and I are very happy being able to take part actually. Big thanks to our team rhinos Leipert Motorsport who made everything happen running our car again, after the big blow at Eurospeedway. Together with external engineers, our team technicians and nevertheless our team owner Ingo Leipert we made it to organize a new running engine.

Today we had our two free practices already on Thursday. Racing in line of the only stop of the GT1 world championships in Germany makes that necessary. So there will be less on-track activity for us the next days. Just once a day.

At the beginning it was Norman to run-in the new engine. So no hard accelerating and checking all systems to work. As expected we found a lot of stumbling stones to work out. From the engine part we are a step back unfortunately. We mention a lack of speed and on-top some trouble with the balance of the car. So we sober a bit right now with our 18th and 17th position, we are not on our regular places. We also hope for wet track. In the rain we should not challenge that much with our performance. Until tomorrow we will do everything we can again realizing our ideas, to be better tomorrow.

From 12:50 its qualifying and we hope to gain some good starting positions for the races. The races will be broadcasted live at 11:45 at the weekend. Channel is kabel1 as always.

Yours Roland.