The TCR class in the third round of the VLN series on the Nürburgring’s Nordschleife was won by the SEAT León run by FEV Racing and driven by Benedikt Gentgen and Marcell Willert.
The nine TCR cars provided a lively competition during the 4-hour ADAC ACAS H&R Cup, with no less then four changes of leadership. In the first 30 minutes, the Mathilda Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI of Andreas Gülden, Benjamin Leuchter and Constantin Kletzer (winner of the series’ two previous rounds) set the pace until it was forced to pit to replace a broken wheel hub.
This handed the leadership to the Kissling Motorsport Opel Astra shared by Volker Strycek and Hannu Luostarinen, that was closely followed by the FEV Racing SEAT, the Mathilda Racing Golf and the LMS Engineering Audi RS3 LMS of Matthias Wasel, Marcus Löhnert and Christian Schmitz.
With less than 90 minutes to go, Luostarinen’s Opel collided with a Porsche 911 and retired. The Mathilda Racing Golf of Gülden, Leuchter and Kletzer retook the lead, but in the final part of the race it was passed by both the FEV Racing SEAT and the LMS Engineering Audi.
The SEAT of Gentgen and Willert completed 25 laps of the 25-km road course to achieve an outstanding 23^rd position overall, crossing the finish line only seven seconds ahead of the LMS Audi (24^th overall), while the Golf of Gülden, Leuchter and Kletzer was classified third (27^th overall), 90 seconds behind the winners and 19 seconds ahead of the Mathilda Racing’s sister car of Michael Paatz, Lutz Marc Rühl and Dennis Wüsthoff.
The fifth and sixth places were filled by the Bonk Motorsport Peugeot 308 (Jürgen Nett, Joachim Nett and Bradley Philpot) and the Team Schimd Honda Civic (Roland Schmid, Roger Vögeli and Rudolf Rhyn).
The VLN third round will be the 48. Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy on 8^th July.