ROWE RACING competed with two SLS AMG GT3s in the Blancpain Endurance Series season finale. Nico Bastian (GER), Stef Dusseldorp (NED) and Daniel Juncadella (ESP) shared driving duties in the gullwing with starting number #99. The trio finished in 19th place in the three-hour race at the Nürburgring. Driving the IGAT gullwing with number #98, Nicolai Sylvest (DEN), Kenneth Heyer (GER) and Miguel Toril (ESP) finished in 15th place.

Right after the start of the race, starting driver Bastian made up four positions in the #99 ROWE RACING SLS and moved up into eighth place. However, later on, Bastian was held up by a group of other cars, although he was quicker. While trying to overtake on lap 18, there was contact: the result was a damaged tyre and a drive-through penalty. After the driver change, Dusseldorp found himself in the final third of the field, but made impressive progress and worked his way up to eleventh, setting the fastest lap times in the field during his stint. Juncadella drove the gullwing across the finish line in twelfth place, but a post-race time penalty of 30 seconds made the team drop back to 19th place overall and 16th position in the Pro Cup.

The IGAT sister car with starting number #98 ended up 30th in qualifying. In the race, starting driver Toril moved up to 23rd place during his stint before handing over the car to Heyer. In the field with no less than 55 GT3 cars at the short Grand Prix circuit of the Nürburgring, overtaking was quite difficult, especially in the midfield. Thus, the German finally handed over the car to Sylvest, who managed to make up some more positions during the final turn. The trio was classified in 15th place, both in the overall result and in the Pro Cup.

In the Blancpain Endurance Series standings, ROWE RACING didn’t manage to score additional points for the Pro Cup Drivers’ and Teams’ standings. Thus, the race team from Worms in Germany ends up seventh in the final endurance standings. Bastian/Dusseldorp conclude the 2015 BES season in sixth place of the drivers’ standings, Juncadella is seventh.

ROWE RACING team principal Hans-Peter Naundorf: “We had high goals for the season finale at the Nürburgring, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to bring it home in the end. We had a very good speed with our #99 SLS, but the two time penalties prevented us from challenging for a top position. Many thanks to the entire team for a tremendous performance throughout the season in our first year in the BES. However, there are more races on the schedule for this year, so we have to get focussed again quickly and prepare for the races to come.”