Top ten finish for Marc VDS at the Nürburgring 28.04.2012: The Marc VDS Racing Team added more laps to their experience bank with another consistent and fast run at the

The Marc VDS Racing Team added more laps to their experience bank with another consistent and fast run at the Nürburgring Nordschleife.  The driving team of Maxime Martin, Bas Leinders and Markus Palttala ran in the top six before another red flag brought proceedings to a premature end with the BMW Z4 GT3 in ninth place.


The Marc VDS Racing Team arrived with three aims - to qualify in the top ten, to finish the race and to learn the new development specification Dunlop tyres the team will use for the 24 Hours of Nürburgring.


The first aim was achieved by Belgian Martin, who qualified the car in ninth place.  Having missed the team's last visit to the Nordschleife, it was decided that he would start the race as well, and in his stint ran comfortably in the top ten before handing over to Leinders.  With incidents ahead, he was soon into seventh position but a minor issue with the front suspension meant that he was forced to pit a little early and hand over to Markus Palttala with a slightly longer stop.


Palttala took over the car and was soon advancing, moving to eighth before a small problem with the front tyre meant a slightly prolonged pitstop while handing back the car to Maxime Martin.  With the tyre problem easily solved, it is yet more data for the team to take into their 24 Hour assault.


However, despite these small issues, there was still a top ten finish for the team, which is a strong result on just the Marc VDS Racing Team's second race at the circuit.  With the 24 Hours of Nürburgring just under a month away, the team will be working flat out to make sure the car is in top shape for the race - where they hope to gain a top six position.


Maxime Martin: "It was really good to get more track time here, after missing the last race.  I think I still need more experience though! It was excellent to make the top ten in qualifying, which means we get to run in the top 40 session at the 24 Hour event - there will be less cars on track, which improves our chances of a good time.  We had a lot of good laps in the race and only small issues, which is great.  I just hope we can continue in this vein going into the 24 Hours."


Andrew Richardson: Chief Engineer "The new Dunlop tyres are really very good for the car, and for the team.  To have a working relationship with a company like Dunlop is really good - they've given us huge support.  There are significant differences between them and the Michelin we've had before here, which really affects how we use the tyres on the car. 


We have to alter the set up, but we have a very good set of engineering tools here to help us do that, and that was the main point of this race - to use it as a test.  From an engineering point of view, we need to analyse what we did here.  We've got a lot of data to analyse and take in, but we're really looking forward to the challenge of the 24 Hour."

                         
- Marc VDS  also photo