VLN6 notebook

➤ Black Falcon scored a remarkable hattrick in the 42. RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen. Manuel Metzger crossed the finish line after 25 laps with a monster gap of 2 minutes 15.779 seconds to Frank Stippler in the #32 Car Collection Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3. Metzger was also behind the wheel at VLN4 when the team won its first of three races in a row, but missed the next race when Maro Engel took over. Patrick Assenheimer, the owner of the AutoArena-sponsored Mercedes-AMG GT3, was the only driver who took all three victories.

➤ Read our race report of the sixth race of the season HERE.

➤ The last time a team achieved the feat of winning three consecutive races was in 2009 when Christian Mamerow and Dirk Werner drove their Mamerow Racing Porsche 997 GT3 Cup S to victory in the final three races of the season.

➤ Watch the highlights of the race.

➤ You can find our full VLN6 gallery HERE.

➤ Neither Patrick Assenheimer nor Manuel Metzger will be challenging for Black Falcon’s fourth consecutive win in VLN7. Both will be competing in Blancpain GT, with Assenheimer taking on the Endurance Cup finale in Barcelona for Black Falcon to defend second place in the Pro-Am Cup, while Metzger goes to Shanghai for the World Challenge Asia finale at Shanghai with Solite Indigo Racing where his Dutch-Korean teammate Récardo Bruins Choi leads the overall and Silver Cup standings.

➤ Kévin Estre lost a very good shot at the race win when he crashed out of the lead in Mutkurve, but the race came close to having two leaders crash out. Manuel Metzger recalled sliding off at Aremberg and hitting the barrier. The kiss of the guardrail didn’t result in significant damage, however, and the German continued shaken but not stirred.

➤ Read our interviews with race winners Patrick Assenheimer and Manuel Metzger.

➤ Car Collection Motorsport scored its very first outright VLN podium. A test entry for Audi Sport, the #32 Car Collection Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3 driven by works drivers Frank Stippler and Pierre Kaffer started from eight and quietly worked its way forward throughout the 4-hour race to finished second.

➤ Christian Krognes was substituted by Nick Catsburg in the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport. The Norwegian is expecting the birth of his first child this month and was given the race off by Walkenhorst Motorsport. Catsburg also competes the Intercontinental GT Challenge with Walkenhorst alongside Krognes and Mikkel Jensen. Success wasn’t in the cards for the PlayStation BMW: As good as the Yokohama tyres are in the dry, the rain tyres are still left with a lot of room for improvement. The team from Melle finished one lap down in seventh.

➤ 2019 sees the return of the VLN-Fanpage Kartevent after taking a break last year. The eleventh edition of the popular post-season contest will be held on Saturday 2 November, one week after the last VLN race. 20+ professional racers from the German racing scene will compete in teams with fans at Karting Eupen, located in Belgium near Aachen. Amongst the drivers in for the season encore are Tim Scheerbarth, Nico Bastian, Jörg Müller, Felipe Fernández Laser, Manuel Metzger, Fabian Vettel, Michael Schrey and Alex Müller. Fans can still sign up for the event. Go HERE for more information.

➤ ‘No money, no problem’, Jürgen Nett must’ve thought when his #308 Nett Motorsport Peugeot 308 Racing Cup TCR came to a standstill at Breidscheid with a fuel pick-up issue. In need of more fuel to temporarily resolve the issue, the Nordschleife veteran ran over to the local Aral fuel station outside of the track and handed over his watch as collateral for a 20-litre jerrycan of fuel.

➤ Jürgen Nett’s crew had to make it to the finish to score points and secure the SP2T championship. His unusual refuelling adventure worked out as hoped and the team finished ahead of the only other SP2T competitor, the Racing4Emotion Mini JCW Coupe. The Mini retired from the lead with half a lap to go due to a transmission failure. With three races left, the Bonk Motorsport-entered #308 Nett Motorsport Peugeot 308 Racing Cup TCR of drivers Jürgen and Joachim Nett and Bradley Philpot was crowned SP2T champion.

➤ Racing Engineers used the Friday morning practice session to test run an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Mk.II on tyres from its sponsor Giti Tires. The team, currently racing a modified first-generation Audi R8 LMS GT3 in the SP8 class, is tight-lipped about future plans with the car but has said it will come with an announcement soon.

➤ The fan-favourite Zakspeed SRT Viper GT3-R will return for the VLN season finale in October. The Peter Zakowski-led team has signed KW automotive as partner for its Viper project and is eyeing a 2020 VLN and Nürburgring 24 Hours return with the American sports car “if it gets a fair Balance of Performance”.

➤ Next year’s calendar was released over the weekend, again featuring 9 races. The 2020 season opens on 21 March followed by two more races until a break for the Nürburgring 24 Hours held on 21-24 May. VLN resumes on 27 June with the remaining six races after the ‘N24’ following each other up by more or less one month.

21 March VLN1
4 April VLN2
18 April VLN3
27 June VLN4
11 July VLN5
1 August VLN6
29 August VLN7 (6-hour race)
26 September VLN8
24 October VLN9

➤ In the VLN championship Yannick Fübrich and David Griessner are leading the standings. The Pixum Team Adrenalin Motorsport duo finished first in the BMW M240i Racing Cup class but were slapped with a time-penalty for overtaking under yellow which threw them back to second, but remain in the lead of the championship with 47.78 points, 0.79 points more than teammates Norbert Fischer, Oskar Sandberg and Daniel Zils who compete with a Porsche Cayman in the V5 class. The latter are leading the standings in the VLN Produktionswagen-Trophäe, while Griessner is on top of the charts in the VLN Junior-Trophäe as well.

➤ The race for the Rowe Speed-Trophäe where teams score points for their outright finishing position, is firmly under control of the #6 Black Falcon Team AutoArena Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3, having scored another 35 points with its race win. The #4 Falken Motorsports Porsche 991.2 GT3R follows in second with 76 points, followed closely by the #99 Rowe Racing BMW M6 GT3 (75 points), #5 Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 (74 points) and #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 (72 points).

➤ The next race is held on 28 September. The 59. ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen hosts the seventh race of the year. Last year Black Falcon’s Hubert Haupt, Maro Engel and Manuel Metzger won the race.