Team Black Falcon’s Porsches secured double class victories in the third round of the 2014 VLN Championship at the Nürburgring Nordschleife on Saturday, April 26th, while the team’s Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 settled for third place.
Racing kicked off with a Qualifying session on Saturday morning. Team Black Falcon’s Mercedes set the fourth quickest time in the hands of Christian Menzel, Hubert Haupt and Abdulaziz Turki AlFaisal.
Unfortunately, the latter was forced to sit aside on Sunday due to illness; he was replaced by the experienced Yelmer Buurman who has previously raced in many championships including Formula Renault, GP3 Series and Superleague Formula.
Sunday’s four-hour race saw the Black Falcon Mercedes jump from P4 to P3 after a great first lap; the team then moved to first place overall at the one-hour mark. However, the lead was short-lived as the team pitted almost halfway into the race, to rejoin in P7. This transformed into a satisfying P5 at the end of the race.
The Black Falcon Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 completed a total of 27 laps in 4 hours 05 minutes and 42.719 seconds, and finished just 40 seconds behind the leading BMW of Team Marc VDS.
Meanwhile, the Black Falcon Porsches celebrated two separate class victories, with the #57 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup of Tim Scheerbarth, Hannes Plesse and Andreas Weishaupt finishing 13th overall and first in the SP7 class, while the #396 Porsche 911 Carrera, shared by Ivan Jacoma, Manuel Metzger and Christian Schmitz, crossed the finish line 32nd overall and 1st in the V6 category.
Team Black Falcon is using the VLN Championship races as a test bed and preparation program for the 2014 edition of the 24 Hours of Nürburgring in which the team hopes to defend its 2013 title.
The grueling 24 Hours of Nürburgring will take place on June 21st, one month after the fourth VLN race that is scheduled on May 17th.