PSR-Volvo Finishes First and Third in 250 Mile Race

Ulli Andree and Fredy Lienhard, jr scored another win for PSR Volvo, while the sister-S60 of Remo and André Lips only just missed out on second place due to a few teething problems after a rebuild at the eleventh hour.

Nothing could stop Ulli Andree and Fredy Lienhard, jr – not even an injured groin. Lienhard’s injury enforced an different race strategy on the Adenau-based team. But Andree/Lienhard won the ninth round of the German Endurance Championship nevertheless.

After a number of races with a more reliable long-distance spec engine, PSR reverted to the sharper sprint version of the five-cylindre for the penultimate round of the championship. Andree clocked the second-fastest lap a Volvo had ever driven round the Nordschleife to secure pole in class, and the Cologne-based driver ran away with the lead in the early stages of the race. „The handling was excellent," he said. „Even on full tanks, I was able to pull out really good lap times and managed to establish a convincing lead. But then, on lap 9, I suffered from a sudden tyre deflation at the front right. The incident occured at the Tiergarten, where we are flat out in sixth gear. Luckily, I managed to bring the car back to the pits."

The PSR crew brought the routine stop forward by one lap and put Lienhard in the car. The Swissman held onto the lead but pitted for a driver change after six laps. „It wasn’t so much a matter of pain but more of me being exhausted and not fully up to it," he explained. „Rather than taking unnecessary risks, we opted for a better safe than sorry-strategy and let Ulli finish the race."

Andree did the job and brought the car home in first place, nearly completing a double victory for the team – had it not been for two extra pit stops from their sister car.

Swiss siblings André and Remo Lips had only just before the decided: „We want to compete in the last two races." According to PSR team principal Danny Berk, „this meant that we had to rebuild our second Volvo S60 overnight. There was no time for testing in advance, neither in private nor on the Friday in the build-up to the 250 mile race." Remo Lips added: „We knew that our qualifying and maybe even our race were destined to be our first test with the rebuilt car."

In spite of this, the Zuerich-based brothers worked themselves up into a position from where they were about to strike for second place – until they had to be called in for two repair stops, both of them related to the electronics of the car. „Those things can happen any time when you have to build up a car in a rush and can’t shakedown it advance, let alone test it," conceded André Lips. Berk added: „The two repair stops lasted quite long because it was not easy to locate where the problems originally came from. Once we had found the source, the actual repair work was done quite quickly. But finding the origin took some time, as it always does with electronics."

Thus, instead of finishing second to their sister car with Andree/Lienhard, Lips/Lips ended the race in third position. „Both driving wise and from the times, a double-victory would have been realistic," calculated Berk. „But we have another opportunity to achieve that in a fortnight."

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