Whilst the racing headlines may have been all about a certain young Dutchman and his Mercedes AMG GT3 team mates at first winning and then later losing the race upon a technicality, the second Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie race of the season was at least productive for the three Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 powered crews.
With race one of the year cancelled because of unsafe racing conditions around the Nordschleife, todays four-hour affair at least had the benefit of gently warming sunny and dry track conditions as over one hundred and thirty cars took to the track again.
Whilst that Verstappen car did take overall pole position by some margin, the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport AMR Vantage SP9 Pro classed entry of Christian Krognes and Matia Drudi were still upon the second row of the rolling grid in fourth. Their sister #35 Pro-Am entered car would start P25 overall with the single Prosport Racing SP9 Am classed car two slot further back for this midday’s start.
Their persistence would be rewarded at the end as the #34 car would improve to a P4 overall after the post-race disqualification of the Verstappen car but the other two would better than with a podium position each within their respective classes.
The #35 Walkenhorst car of Mateo Villagomez, Felipe Fernandez Laser and Dennis Fetnet would claim a P2 finish within their even strong SP9 Pro-Am class whilst Marek Bockmann with Maxime and Guido Dumarey secured a P3 finish within their SP9 Am class.
The next round to the NLS series will be in three weeks’ time.
Photo credits – Teams / social media