The Racing One team finished its 1st race of the VLN-Endurance Championship on the Nürburgring Nordschleife with a 2nd in class with it´s SP8 Ferrari F458 Challenge. The squad of teammanager Martin Kohlhaas and the pilots Carsten Struwe and Christian Kohlhaas fulfilled the self-defined mission of a finish in the points at the first race under own flag with it´s new car. Racing One fielded a Challenge Ferrari F458 that was modified with a self-developed aero and suspension-kit, specific adapted to the requirements of the Nürburgring-Nordschleife.

„It could have been even better.“ concluded Martin Kohlhaas after the race. „We were leading our class in the first stint until a damaged tire and a punctured radiator required some minutes to repair. A second tire damage sealed our position. But our crew did a good job and fixed these minor problems immediately.  We took a lot of conclusions and learnings from this first race, which we will now analyse with our Partner Dunlop to improve for further rounds of the championship. After the stops our Pilots were fast enough to keep 2nd place and even got back some lost ground. We did not catch the leading Lexus in our class, but 2nd is still a good result for our debut. Both Pilots were satisfied with the performance oft he improved car. They confirmed that the new kit for the Ferrari generated a lot of confidence and drivability on the Nordschleife. „

Racing One plans the full VLN-season 2014 and will also contest in the 42.nd 24h at the Nürburgring with the car. „Our goal is to develop an affordable kit for the Challenge Ferrari which will enable it to compete with the Cup-Porsches on the legendary Nürburgring. We want to establish the emotional name of Ferrari on the Nordschleife. There is still some potential in the yet good package and we will continue to develop our kit further in the next races.“

Additional Info: The SP8-race at the first VLN-round
At the first VLN-race of the season – the 60.th ADAC Westfahlenfahrt – 4 cars started in the SP8-class (4000-6250ccm engine-capacity). Aside from Racing One´s Ferrari F458 Challenge  there were 2 Lexus IS-F fielded by the german team Ring-Racing and one Aston Martin V12 Vantage fielded by the Aston Martin Testcenter. The Ferrari started from class-pole and was leading till it´s 1st stop where the crew had to fix a punctured radiator and a tire-damage. That handed the lead to the Lexus of Kleen/Völker and Nissan Playstation Academy graduate Jordan Tresson. Parallel the leading Lexus team lost their sister-car on an oiled track at the Schwalbenschwanz-section. As also the Aston got in trouble and came in for repairs, the positions in the class were sealed for the rest of the race.

The race was won overall after 28 laps by the GT3 Phoenix-Audi R8 of Basseng/Stippler/Vanthoor , leading the Black Falcon Mercedes SLS GT3 of Simonsen/Arnold/Bleekemolen and the Schubert BMW Z4 of  Klingmann/Baumann/Tomczyk. In total 165 cars started the 4h long race from which 116 finished it.