Richard Lietz: "The Porsche was like a rally car!"

Richard Lietz added his third VLN race win to his resume in the rain-marked 61. ADAC ACAS H&R-Cup. The number 912 Porsche 991.2 GT3R driver took over from team-mate Nick Tandy with 75 minutes remaining on a drying track and the prospect of a most likely victory.

“It was a good stint,” Lietz says.

“I jumped into the car and there was no grip in the beginning. We knew it was going to dry up, so we played with the tyre pressure to learn something to survive longer in the dry situation and therefor it was difficult to get the tyres to work in the beginning. When they started to work, they lasted longer in the dry situation.

“The last three laps were quite fun; it was like a rally car! It’s amazing that you can drive so long with rain tyres in the dry.”

Whereas Tandy had led the race for most of his two stints, Lietz let fellow Manthey Racing driver Dennis Olsen in the number 12 Porsche lead the way. The Austrian knew Olsen had one more pitstop to make.

“In the beginning I let Dennis go because he was at that point already 3 hours in the car, so he knew where the grip was. I looked where the line was and when my tyres started to work, I closed the gap and we went through the traffic together without taking any risks.

“It was clear that he would have to pit, so instead of fighting and losing time, we just went through the traffic together. This was good team work, because when you fight you lose time and the others would come closer.”

Despite the Porsches crossing the finish line in 1-2-3 order, the reigning 24 Hours of the Nürburgring champion doesn’t believe we’ve seen everyone’s full potential yet.

“I think a lot of good cars crashed on aquaplaning and were out of the race quite soon. I don’t think we saw everyone in a perfect situation. We still need to have a normal race to judge the performance of all of the cars – a race without any snow, fog or rain.

“Maybe this time during the 24 Hours we’ll be lucky and it’ll be dry. They moved the date to when it might not snow!”