Weekend Racing Roundup, 8.4

There are three series in this week’s Sportscar365 Weekend Racing Roundup: VLN at the Nürburgring, Supercar Challenge at Assen as well as the final round of the lesser-known Japanese Super Car Race Series from Okayama.

VLN
Frikadelli Racing Team scored their third win of the VLN season on Saturday, as Klaus Abbelen, Sabine Schmitz and Patrick Huisman finished first in the 37th RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen.

BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert drivers Max Sandritter, Thomas Jäger, Dominik Baumann and Jens Klingmann finished in second place, despite an early lead and a new VLN lap record of 7:59.045 for Klingmann.

Klingmann started from pole and the Dörr McLaren, that crashed out of the race later, behind in the opening laps. On lap 10, however, Frikadelli took over the lead and the Porsche would remain in that position until the end, finishing three minutes clear of the BMW. A mistake at race control resulted in the checkered flag being waved some 150 seconds too early.

Race – 1. Frikadelli Racing Team (Abbelen/Schmitz/Huisman) Porsche, 2. BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert (Sandritter/Jäger/Baumann/Klingmann) BMW, 3. ROWE Racing (Zehe/Seyffarth) Mercedes.

Supercar Challenge
Round five of the Supercar Challenge powered by Pirelli was held at the TT Circuit in Assen, The Netherlands. Kelvin Snoeks (Volvo) took the lead at the start, passing Henry Zumbrink (Volvo). Bob Herber (Ferrari) was able to keep up with Snoeks, until he made a mistake on lap five and lost valuable seconds.

Snoeks remained in first place after the pit stops and went on to win race one. Behind him the battle for second was won by Robert de Graaff and Roger Grouwels and their Viper, ahead of the Ferrari of Bob Herber and Martin Lanting.

On Sunday, in front of 82,000 spectators, it was Zumbrink who took the win. Snoeks took second place, despite two drive-through penalties. Snoeks moved into the lead at the start, but passed a lapped car under yellow and was penalized. At the same time the safety car was deployed due to a number of stranded cars and with the pit window just opening the race order changed immediately.

After the pit stops Zumbrink was in the lead, a position he would not give up any more. Despite the second drive-through, for a short pit stop, Snoeks rejoined in third and soon passed the Ferrari of Herbert/Lanting to finish second.

Race 1 – 1. Day-V-Tec (Snoeks) Volvo, 2. Team Raceart (Grouwels/De Graaff) Dodge Viper, 3. Martino Rosso Racing (Lanting/Herber) Ferrari.

Race 2 – 1. Day-V-Tec (Zumbrink) Volvo, 2. Day-V-Tec (Snoeks) Volvo, 3. Martino Rosso Racing (Lanting/Herber) Ferrari.

Super Car Race Series
The Super Car Race Series raced at Okayama this weekend, for rounds nine and ten of the season. Ten cars were on the grid of the first race, with Akira Mizutani and Taiyou Iida claiming victory with their K’s Frontier Direction Racing Ferrari 458 Italia. The duo finished almost a minute ahead of the GAIAPOWER Adenau Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 of Shogo Mitsuyama and Swiss driver Philippe Devesa.

In Race 2, Kota Sasaki and Naoryu in the Age-Age Racing Ferrari 458 Challenge finished in first place, after 25 laps on the 3.7km (2.3m) long Okayama International Circuit. Ryohei Sakaguchi and Maki Saito finished second in their BINGO SPORTS Porsche.

Race 1 – 1. Direction Racing (Mizutani/Iida) Ferrari, 2. Adenau (Mitsuyama/Devesa) Mercedes, 3. BINGO SPORTS (Takei/Hotta) Porsche.

Race 2 – 1. Age-Age Racing (Sasaki/Naoryu) Ferrari, 2. BINGO SPORTS (Sakaguchi/Saito) Porsche, 3. Team Shift (Yamawaki/Nakajima) Porsche.