10 Jul 2022
Punch Racing says goodbye to the summer break of the Nürburgring Endurance Series with a podium result at the ROWE 6h ADAC Ruhr Cup race.
The ROWE 6h ADAC Ruhr Cup Race is one of the season highlights in the Nürburgring Endurance Series. Many fans therefore found their way to the Nürburgring-Nordschleife to watch the six-hour race. PROsport Racing brought an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 and a Vantage GT4 to the start.
With the GT4 car, Norwegian Emil Heyerdahl was able to experience the best starting position in the SP10 class. For the member of the Aston Martin Racing Driver Academy it is the first pole position in the Nürburgring Endurance Series at the second race with the Vantage GT4. Together with Guido Dumarey and Simon Balcaen, the youngster drove to third position in class in the race.
As early as the third lap, GT3 drivers Maxime Dumarey, Jean Glorieux and Christoph Breuer suffered a major setback. After breaking the wheel hub, the car lost its right front tire. “We are currently examining the wheel carrier, but there seems to have been contact, not in this race, but in one of the previous races,” said team boss Christoph Esser about the cause of the defect.
After the repair break, the team was able to return to the Nordschleife to collect further important data for the continuation of the project. After five hours of racing, the team then shut down the car. When it started to rain in places, the team did not want to take any unnecessary risks and put the car at risk.
“We were able to gather a lot of important knowledge with Christoph Breuer and were able to set good lap times compared to the front runners,” Esser continues. “But our main problem still remains the performance deficit compared to the competitors. There is a very revealing onboard recording after about four hours when our car tried to overtake a Cup BMW on the Döttinger Höhe. Our driver Maxime Dumarey had to get behind the BMW again in its slipstream to then be able to pass behind the Antoniusbuche on the downhill section. We are in intensive exchange with the technical commission and I am confident that they have also recognized the problem.”
The Nürburgring Endurance Series now enters its summer break. The popular endurance series will continue from September 9 to 11, when the 12-hour race will be held for the first time. On Saturday and Sunday, there will then be one race part each over six hours. In addition, concerts and camping facilities will attract fans.