ROWE RACING’s run of success comes to an end: After the two third places in the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup in Misano and the 24-hour qualifying race at the Nürburgring, the team from St. Ingbert was hoping in vain for the third podium finish within 15 days at the first endurance race of the 2016 season of the Blancpain GT Series. At the tradition-steeped high-speed track in the Royal Park of Monza in Northern Italy, both of the team’s BMW M6 GT3s retired from the race early.
Things initially appeared to be going well for the #99 car, whose cockpit was shared by the BMW works drivers Philipp Eng from Austria, Alexander Sims from Great Britain and Dirk Werner from Germany. The car set the best time in both the first and second qualifying sessions. However, in the third session, Alexander Sims got caught up in traffic in the large field, resulting in 11th place on the grid for the race. Until about half-way through the race, Philipp Eng and Dirk Werner remained in the top ten spots and staged some good battles with their rivals, when after 47 laps and while they were in ninth place, an unexpected mechanical problem with the suspension ended their race early.
The weekend didn’t go at all according to plan for the #98 sister car, in which BMW works driver and former FIA-GT world champion Lucas Luhr from Germany made his debut for ROWE RACING alongside Dutchman Stef Dusseldorp and Germany’s Klaus Graf. After lacking speed in the practice and qualifying sessions, the trio started the race from 47th on the grid and were the victims of a collision at the back of the field on lap one. After making repairs in the pit, the team went back on track a few times to test the car, but decided to end the race early.
ROWE RACING team boss Hans-Peter Naundorf: “It’s a real shame that we were unable to bring home the points that were certainly possible with the #99 car. We showed that we have the speed in qualifying. The balance was good, and some of the changes made noticeable improvements to our BMW M6 GT3. Unfortunately, Alex Sims didn’t have a clear lap in qualifying with the heavy traffic, but we were more than happy with starting position 11. We aren’t quite where we would like to be in the race yet, but we are still developing the car. And on a track like Monza in particular, which places extreme demands on the cars, things can go wrong. Whereas with the #98 car we didn’t get the necessary speed throughout the weekend, although we made a lot of changes and swapped a lot of parts. We will have to analyse this back home to find out why this was the case.”
The team has the opportunity to get back on the road to success this Saturday (30th April). The second event in the VLN Endurance Championship will be held at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, which is the final racing action in the Eifel before the 24-hour race on 28th/29th May. Between these two events, ROWE RACING will be in action in England at the next two events in the Blancpain GT Series on 8th May in Brands Hatch (sprint) and on 15th May in Silverstone (endurance).