The Marc VDS Racing Team’s Marc Hennerici and Bas Leinders fought their way through from the back of the grid despite having suffered damage on the first lap, to claim an eighth place finish in today’s GT1 championship race at the Sachsenring. Maxime Martin was forced to retire from the race, following a collision in the first corner that left the #41 Ford GT too damaged to continue.
As has become the norm in the GT1 World Championship this season, the opening lap of the race was incident packed. Starting from sixteenth place on the grid, Leinders managed to avoid the turn one chaos and make up some places. However in turn three the geometry of the #40 Ford GT was compromised as the car was hit in the rear right wheel by another car. Despite the damage Leinders was able to make up a place after being released by the safety car and handed the #40 Ford GT over to Hennerici in P9. The German driver was left battling the car for the remainder of the race and managed to finish in 8th position.
While Leinders was lucky to be able to continue, the same wasn’t true of Martin in the #41 Ford GT. The Marc VDS driver was hit in right rear by the #8 Aston Martin of Mücke which sent him into the #3 Aston Martin. Martin rejoined in sixth position but had suffered heavy damage to the right rear causing the tyre to disintegrate and eventually forcing him to retire the race.
Bas Leinders: Ford GT #40 – 8th Position
“I was lucky to avoid the drama in turn one, got a good start but only to get hit by another car in turn three. The car was very difficult to drive and after the pit stop we noticed the canvas was visible – indicating a problem with the geometry. Of course we changed the tyres – which is mandatory – but Marc had to continue with the same problem and still managed to gain a place on Michaël Krumm.”
Maxime Martin: Ford GT #41 – DNF
“I got a good start and went into turn one when all of the sudden I was hit by the #8 Aston Martin of Mücke which caused me to hit the #3 car. I felt there was something wrong with the rear suspension and later the tyre blew and were forced to retire.”
Jean-Michel Delporte: Team Manager
“First of all I would like to congratulate Marc VDS and also Belgian Racing team who scored their first championship point of the season with Yann Clairay and Antoine Leclerc. Of course we are not happy with the final result this weekend for Marc VDS. We were in a position to claim the victory and have the two cars in the top three. Maxime was hit going into the first corner by Stefan Mücke, which I personally think was done deliberately. With the amount of damage we’ve suffered recently let’s hope we can still have four cars in the championship by the end of the season.”
Source : Marc VDS