The Marc VDS Racing Team’s BMW Z4 GT3 will start tomorrow’s 24 Hours of Nürburgring from the seventh row of the grid, after Maxime Martin qualified the car in 14th position during this evening’s top 40 shootout. This weekend marks the debut of the Marc VDS Racing Team in the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, but the team and their three drivers – Bas Leinders, Maxime Martin and Markus Palttala – have already made their mark on this prestigious event. Lying 15th after the opening qualifying session on Thursday evening, the #29 BMW Z4 GT3 jumped up the timesheet during this morning’s two-hour session when Martin improved on his previous best lap by almost six seconds. It was enough to move the Marc VDS Racing Team up to third on the timesheet, ahead of all the other BMW powered teams.
The top 40 shootout, a qualifying format unique to the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, sees 40 drivers despatched at ten second intervals to complete two timed laps of the Nordschleife to decide grid positions for the race. The Marc VDS Racing Team’s spot in the top 40 came as a result of their top ten qualifying performance at round three of the VLN series. Martin took another five seconds off his previous best in top 40 qualifying, posting a best time of 8’23.111 on the second of his two flying laps to secure 14th position on the grid for tomorrow’s race.
Maxime Martin:
“The top 40 qualifying is good, because you have a completely clear track in front of you. In normal qualifying you are constantly running into traffic, so it’s great to be able to get out there and really push for a time. Of course, tomorrow’s race will be the opposite, with a lot of traffic to negotiate. We’ll also have to adapt to the weather, which will be a big question mark for everybody. As always, it will be difficult to manage everything, but we are here to finish and I’m confident we can do that.”
Markus Palttala:
“It’s been a good weekend for us so far. We’ve made a lot of progress with the set-up of the car, have a better understanding of the tyres and we’ve been quite fast. In this morning’s session as well as looking for lap times, we spent some time evaluating fuel consumption and tyre wear, both of which will be important in the race. I lost a lap to a technical problem but, overall, it was a positive session. We know we’re facing a tough challenge in the race tomorrow. We won’t be pushing from the start, but instead finding our own rhythm that will allow us to go fast with the minimum of risk. Our aim is to finish, so we’ll see where we are come Sunday morning.”
Bas Leinders:
“We’re happy with our qualifying position today. We’re new to the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, but we’re not new to 24 hour racing, so we know the race isn’t won or lost in qualifying. We have shown this weekend that we are getting closer to the pace of the front-runners while maintaining consistency. We’ve also seen that the car is performing very well, it’s reliable and it’s good on tyres, all of which will be important in tomorrow’s race. We only have one car; on one hand that’s a bit of a risk if we have a problem in the race, but on the other it allows the team to focus completely on this one car. We are well prepared for the race tomorrow, but to finish here at the Nürburgring you also need a little bit of luck too.”
Source : Marc VDS Racing Team