The start of the 2016 VLN Endurance Championship at the Nürburgring heralds a new era for ROWE RACING: Saturday (2nd April) sees the St. Ingbert-based racing team go in search of more success with two BMW M6 GT3s for the first time on the Nordschleife – a track it regards as its “living room”. ROWE RACING will field two BMW M6 GT3s at the 62nd ADAC Westfalenfahrt, as the new powerhouse from Munich makes its race debut in Germany. The team is using the race to prepare for the highlight of the season, the 44th staging of the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring (28th/29th May).
ROWE RACING team principal Hans-Peter Naundorf, whose team finished first and third at the 61st ADAC Westfalenfahrt, which formed the opening round of the 2015 VLN season, is not only looking forward to the start of the new racing season on the Nordschleife, with support from new partner BMW Motorsport. He is also excited about a number of new faces in his driver line-up, particularly BMW DTM driver Maxime Martin, who will also support the ROWE RACING team at the 24-hour race.
Belgian Martin, who made his name in endurance racing before moving to the DTM, will share the cockpit of the #23 car with BMW works drivers Philipp Eng from Austria and German Dirk Werner. Driving duties in the second car, the #22 BMW M6 GT3, will be shared by Klaus Graf and his new team-mates Richard Westbrook from Great Britain and Finland’s Markus Palttala.
ROWE RACING team principal Hans-Peter Naundorf: “We are pleased to finally get racing in our ‘living room’, the Nordschleife, with our new partner BMW Motorsport and our new BMW M6 GT3s. We hope this combination will allow us to achieve even more success. Our goals for the VLN opener are to get the cars through the race without any problems, to test their stability on the Nordschleife and to give our drivers the opportunity to get some kilometres under their belt and gain valuable experience with the new car. We are very happy with our current driver pairings for this season, and are looking forward to seeing our new drivers racing for the first time.”
The 62nd ADAC Westfalenfahrt, the first of ten rounds of the VLN, gets underway at 12:00 on Saturday 2nd April. The four-hour race takes place on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife.