Pierre Ehret and the german GT-Corse team finished 13th and 3rd in class in the longest race of the VLN endurance championship last weekend, the Opel 6h ADAC Ruhrpokal. The result for the Ferrari F458 squad came in competition with 205 other teams, and a record-braking 14 opponents in the SP8-class for cars with 4l-6,2l engine capacity. Ehret and his teamcolleagues Maximilian Götz (current ADAC-GT-Champion), Patrik Kaiser and Alexander Mattschul ran without errors despite tricky whether-conditions. For Ehret it was the first class-podium in a race on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife. GT-Corse, who won the class with its Ferraris in the 2 pevious races, faced strong competition as multiple 24h-winners Manthey Racing fielded their lead car with increased engine capacity also in SP8 and won the class as 4th overall. Overall winner at the weekend was the Rowe-Mercedes of Seyffarth/Arnold/Bastian.
GT-Corse – a Ferrari challenge-team run by German Danny Pfeil – had started last year to develop a special Nürburgring-suspension kit for the F458 Challenge. Ehret, also owner of such a F458 run by the squad, upgraded his car at the start of the year to the requirements of the unique 24,8 km long german track-monster. „Today the car was handling very easy despite the tricky conditions and the incredible traffic with 205 opponents. Even in the rain we could fight against some of the GT3-cars and overtake them for positions. Danny has made a fine job with his guys to give interested Ferrari-Owners a chance to compete on the legendary track. Our guys run without errors and 3rd in class was a fine result at the end.”
Pfeils team fielded 3 Ferrari F458 in the race which all finished as 3rd, 4th and 12th in class. „A good team result. More was hardly possible as Manthey was today in fact fielding a GTE-like car which our Challenge-Cars couldn´t overcome. Maybe P2 would have been possible with a sightly different Tire-Strategy during the rain.” Pfeil stated after the race.
At the next VLN heat, the 36.RCM-Grenzlandrennen on September 14.th, Ehret plans his next appearence in the popular german endurance-series. Together with his team GT-Corse he aims for a slight surprise which may involve a class-change for the experienced Nürburgring Ferrari-Team…
Additional Infos: The SP8-class at the 5th VLN-heat
15 competitors meant a record braking grid for the class for cars with 6,25-4l engine capacity at the 5.th heat of the VLN 2013, the Opel 6h-Ruhrpokal-Race. 2 Porsche, 3 Ferrari, 3 Aston Martin, 4 Lexus and one Corvette, BMW and Hyundai Genesis completed the class-grid for the race on the 24,8km long track. Class-Pole (6th overall) was archieved by Manthey Racings Porsche of the trio Bergmeister/Tandy/Krumbach which included a new 4,4l B6-engine. Behind them Porsche Kremer Racing with a 911 with increased capacity of 4,2l tightly beated the GT-Corse-ferrari in Qualifying on Ranks 19 and 20 respectively.
The 6h Race was characterised by changing conditions where the track changed several times from dry to wet. The Manthey-Team was a class of its own and held contact to the lead of the race, which was traded between the 2 Rowe-Mercedes and the Phoenix Audis. A better tire-poker of the opponents and a late Stop&Go for a 2s too short pit-stop denied the team an overall podium-position. Behind the class winners of Olaf Mantheys squad (4th overall) the Kremer-Porsche of Wolfgang Kaufmann and Peter Posavac finished 2nd after a flawless race. 3rd was the #457 GT-Corse Ferrari of Ehret/Götz/Kaiser/Mattschul. The blue F458 Challenge of car-owner Ehret turned out to be the fastest and most reliableof the 3 Ferraris of the team. The yellow F458 of Kohlhaas/Struwe/Jäger/Rössel finished 4th in class and the black of Danyliw/Schmidt/van der Valk as Twelfth. The yellow Ferrari beated the Lexus ISC of japanese testdrivers Yoshimoto/Akira.
14 of 15 started SP8 teams (the class is sometimed dubbed as „Nürburgring-GT1″) finished the race – the only DNF being the HRT-Vantage which finished the race with an accident after 4 1/2h.
Source : Pierre Ehret