24 h Nürburgring: Good starting position for the Swiss
LANGSTRECKENRENNEN Nico Müller and birthday boy Marcel Fässler start the 45th ADAC 24-hour race Nürburgring today, Saturday at 3:30 p.m., with good chances. Around two dozen Swiss drivers are on the grid. 159 cars took part in practice for the world's biggest endurance race. Among the 600 or so drivers from around the world are two Swiss with big ambitions. Robin [...]
159 vehicles took part in training for the world's biggest endurance race. Among the 600 or so drivers from all over the world are two Swiss with big ambitions.
Robin Frjins (NL), once a Sauber F1 reserve driver, qualified one of the two Audi R8 LMS from the Belgian team WRT for 4th place on the grid. The Dutchman will take turns at the wheel with Marcel Fässler and Nico Müller as well as René Rast - Müller's DTM teammate.
Müller put the second Audi on the third row of the grid with the fifth-best time in top-30 qualifying. Unlike Fässler, he has already clinched the coveted overall victory once in 2015. Fässler celebrates his 41st birthday today - no question what he wants most...
"With a starting position in the top 10, we've created a very good starting position for ourselves. However, we don't know how far our opponents have really put their cards on the table. Let's wait for the race...", says Fässler.
On pole position is the SCG003C, a sports car from the special vehicle class with GT3-like performance data. The engine is a Honda V6 biturbo. One of the development and racing engineers is Dario Pergolini from Vaduz.
Geneva's Edoardo Mortara is on the seventh row of the first and fastest starting group with one of the seven Mercedes-AMG GT3s.
Rahel Frey is on the 23rd row of the grid with her Audi R8 LMS GT4. "For us, this is purely a development race. The findings will flow into the further development of this GT4 car, which will be destined for customer teams," clarifies the woman from Solothurn. Nevertheless, she would gladly accept a class victory...
In the second starting group, Andreas Baenziger and Florian Kamelger from Aston Martin St. Gallen will start the race from the 7th row with their Vantage GT4. Chantal, Michael and Martin Kroll as well as Roland Eggimann are the only purely Swiss team on the grid with the BMW M3 CSL from Hofor Racing. They start from the 16th row. Right behind them is Roger Vögeli with an Opel Astra OPC from Lubner Motorsport.
Ivan Jacoma and Yannick Mettler have the best starting position of all the Swiss. Jacoma's Porsche Cayman S from the V6 production car group is lined up next to a 911 Carrera in row 1 of the third starting group. The car of the VLN series car champion from Ticino is entered by Mathol Racing from Germany. Mettler's team set the best time in the class with the BMW M235i Racing and is on row 2.
Fred Yerly and Manuel Amweg share a Toyota GT86 with their German VLN Cup colleagues Jung and Wolf. They start from row 18, but with the near-series car, with which they have to start in the SP3 class, they can only expect a chance of a podium place in the class over the long distance with faultless fast driving.
The complete race can be watched on free TV from 3 p.m. on RTL Nitro. The Swiss motorsport online portal Motorsport.com Schweiz is also broadcasting a livestream. One of the reporters is Swiss Cyndie Allemann.
