Nürburgring: Two Swiss TCR wins 🎥

THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE At the third round of the Nürburgring Endurance Series, Jasmin Preisig and Frédéric Yerly on a VW Golf TCR won their classes, as did Roland Schmid and Roger Vögeli on an Opel Astra TCR. The highlights of the NLS race on May 1. It ended with a double victory for Frikadelli Racing. Best Swiss overall was Patric [...]

Editorial - May 2, 2021

The highlights of the NLS race on May 1. It ended with a double victory for Frikadelli Racing.

Best Swiss in the Overall ranking was Patric Niederhauser in ninth place. Driving one of the factory-supported Audi R8 LMS cars, the driver from Bern and his German team partners Christopher Haase and Dennis Marschall never came within striking distance of the top.

Niederhauser in double duty
However, with a gap of 2:45 minutes to the double winning Frikadelli Racing team, which was manned by Porsche factory drivers, the gap was kept within limits. Spearheading a second Audi, "Nidi" also took victory in the SP9 Pro-Am class with three German privateer drivers.

With an electronic problem on his Audi, Nico Müller's team had to make a long repair stop and thus no longer played a role in the awarding of a top-10 position.

The Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo of Octane 126, with Jonathan Hirschi among others, which had started from the midfield after a penalty, did not finish higher than 16th overall.

The Audi R8 was not quite able to keep up the pace of the front runners. In the number #32 car, Patric Niederhauser finished in 9th place overall (Photo: Jan Brucke/VLN).

Praise from the professional for Jasmin and Fred
The most successful were the touring car drivers from Switzerland. As in the first round held in mid-April (the first one at the end of March fell victim to snowfall), Jasmin Preisig, Frédéric Yerly and Dutch warhorse Tom Coronel decided the team-internal duel with Max Kruse Racing's VW Golf GTI TCR in the SP3T class in their favor by less than eight seconds.

The Appenzeller and the man from Fribourg received full praise from the WTCR routinier, who had done the best preparatory work at the start of the race.

Tom Coronel: "We had good pace, the car was great to drive and the Falken tires had good grip until the last lap. I had no problems at all. My teammates were in a great mood: Jasmin was really fast. In the end, it was exciting to watch Frédéric hold up well to the pressure exerted by Andy Gülden."

Frédéric Yerly, Jasmin Preisig and Tom Coronel cheered as they did two weeks ago (Photo: Group C Photography).

Success for Opel duo from Reinach
Even a little faster than their compatriots in terms of the fastest race lap were Roland Schmid and Roger Vögeli. The two from Basel competed in their first race of the season together in an Opel Astra TCR from Lubner Motorsport and defeated their two opponents in the amateur class under TCR regulations.

In the overall standings, the two MKR Golfs finished 50th and 51st, the Lubner Astra 58th. Faster was an Elantra TCR entered by Hyundai Motorsport, which came in 42nd after four hours among the GT4 cars.

Roger Vögeli (with helmet) and Roland Schmid brought the Opel Astra TCR over the distance as great class winners.

Perfect fulfillment of duty
Ranko Mijatovic celebrated his first NLS victory in a BMW 330i in the 19-car VT2 class. Third in a team with an identical model, Liechtenstein's Fabienne Wohlwend also made it onto the podium in this production car class. She had even handed her car over to the final driver in second place after the middle stint.

Finally, Ricardo Feller won the VT3 class in a Porsche 718 Cayman S without any competition. Like Wohlwend, the professional from Aargau needs such results to obtain the Nürburgring license for GT3 sports cars.