24H Series: This is how the Autorama team won 🎥

SWISS TCR CARS Ahead A TV team from TeleZ depicts the touring car double victory of the VW Golf TCR from Autorama Motorsport at the 16H Hockenheim. We explain what the film report does not show. TeleZ's report on Autorama Motorsport's race at Hockenheim is well worth watching. Scheduling conflicts, travel restrictions, quarantine regulations, budget problems - there are quite a few reasons why only 14 of the 15 [...]

Editorial - September 9, 2020

The report from TeleZ about the race of Autorama Motorsport in Hockenheim is worth seeing.

Scheduling conflicts, travel restrictions, quarantine regulations, budget problems - there are quite a few reasons why only 14 of the 15 cars that took part in the practice session were at the start of the 16 Hours of Hockenheim. A minus record in the history of the 24H Series.

The two-thirds marathon on the GP circuit at Hockenheim - spread over eight race hours each on Saturday and Sunday from 12 noon to 8 p.m. - replaced the always popular 24-hour race at Barcelona scheduled for the same weekend as the fourth championship round in 2020.

Only 15 cars started the first half of the race. Ahead the Renault and the Mercedes from the GT3 class (Photo: 24H Series).

Three-way fight of the Swiss cars
Of the six classes, only the touring car class according to TCR regulations was so well represented with five cars that one could speak of a real battle for the podium positions - and this was primarily fought by the two Swiss teams.

At the halfway point, the Cupra TCR of TOPCAR sport with Fabian Danz, Karen Gaillard and the German newcomer Kai Jordan was still in the lead, although the car had been involved in a starting collision that went smoothly.

The race of the TCR cars started with a collision between the Cupra #131 of TOPCAR sport and the two cars of the non-Swiss teams (photo: Gute Macher Produktion).

An additional stop in the first and ninth hours of the race on Sunday due to a brake pad that had fallen off cost a good lap that could not be recovered.

Also, the trio with the Cupra TCR of the Bernese team was not quite as strong in total as the two with ten drivers of different lengths on the two VW Golf of Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing. At least Young Driver Karen Gaillard came with the help of Danz and Jordan to her first podium in motor racing.

The Cupra TCR from TOPCAR sport could also have won. The bodywork damage from the start collision is clearly visible on the left side (Photo: 24H Series).

Winning streak of Jasmin Preisig
Victory in the TCE classification, which included a BMW M240i and a Ligier JS 2R from the GTX class in addition to the five TCR cars, went to the three Swiss drivers Yannick Mettler, Jasmin Preisig and Christoph Lenz as well as Austrian Konstantin Kletzer and Briton Rhys Lloyd.

At the same time, they captured third place overall as the best touring car team - like the race duration, a first in the 24H Series. After two TCR successes at the Nürburgring, this meant the third consecutive victory for the Appenzeller.

VW works driver Benny Leuchter had put the second Golf on pole position - notably the first ever for the defending champions, who have been competing since 2019. This quintet of drivers, which included the young Basel driver Miklas Born as the only Swiss, lost the decisive punch and shone once again because they had to manage without a limited-slip differential on the front axle from the second of 16 race hours.

This was a clear handicap not only on the partly rain-soaked road on Saturday. On Sunday, this was compounded by the suddenly activated fire extinguisher, which had to be replaced during an extended routine stop.

They lived up to the starting number #1 in the race: Jasmin Preisig, Yannick Mettler, Konstantin Kletzer, Christoph Lenz and Rhys Lloyd (Photo: Gute Macher Produktion).

June title to Miklas Born
18-year-old Miklas Born is now already the overall winner of the junior classification in the intercontinental championship - congratulations.

So the first double victory in the young history of the team from Wetzikon, which is technically supported by Wolf-Power Racing, is undoubtedly not a gift. Especially as the two "foreign" TCR teams were, after all, the winners of the 24H Dubai (AC Motorsport) in January and the 12H Monza (Red Carmel) in July.

1st and 2nd place for the same touring car team was a first for Autorama Motorsport and the 24H Series.

An old truism
And the fact that you always have to finish first to win ("to finish first, you first have to finish," say the Brits) is proven by the example of the pole setter and the second GT3 team, which was clearly leading in the second half of the race on Sunday.

CP Racing's Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo was ahead with a normally unassailable six-lap lead when one of the five drivers sank the sports car into the gravel bed in the Sachskurve. The loss of time due to the recovery and a later radiator damage left only seventh place overall.

Overnight, there was a parc fermé on the home straight. Nothing was allowed to be changed on the cars until after the start of the second half of the race. The grandstands also remained empty during the day - spectators were not allowed anywhere.

Since the Renault RS01, which had previously been fastest in qualifying at Monza, was also soon back with technical problems and then retired, it was the first time that a team from the 991 class of the Porsche 991-II GT3 Cup took the overall victory of a round of the 24H Series.

With a gap of less than two minutes, their only class rival came in second - there were no more GT3 cars on the grid. At the next 24H Series races in Sicily (Coppa Fiorio) and Zandvoort, there should be significantly more again.