VLN: BMW Nurburgring summary
VLN remains BMW territory: Merten and Silvester claim 2010 title. Munich, 31st October 2010. Again the title in the VLN Endurance Championship Nurburgring goes to two BMW drivers: Despite their early retirement from the season finale on Saturday, ...
VLN remains BMW territory: Merten and Silvester claim 2010 title.
Munich, 31st October 2010. Again the title in the VLN Endurance Championship Nurburgring goes to two BMW drivers: Despite their early retirement from the season finale on Saturday, Mario Merten (DE) and Wolf Silvester (DE) secured overall victory for Bonk Motorsport in their BMW Z4. After their 2006 title, it was the second triumph for the pairing in this hard-fought series, while Merten celebrated his third VLN title.
The two team-mates scored a total of 77.54 points in ten exciting races held at the legendary Nurburgring-Nordschleife. Their closest rivals were also racing a BMW: Last year's champion, Alexander Bohm (DE) and his team-mates Philipp Leisen (DE) and Carsten Knechtges (DE) notched up 76.18 points in their Black Falcon BMW Z4, finishing third overall. In the Production Car standings, however, the trio came first, while Knechtges secured the 2010 VLN Junior Trophy.
"It's fantastic that we succeeded in claiming our second title together," said Silvester after the 35th DMV Munsterlandpokal. "This was a tough season, and we really had to fight hard for this title. But we managed to bring it home -- and now it's time to celebrate." Merten added: "The whole team proved its tremendous fighting spirit this year. Whenever our rivals made the slightest mistake, we were right there to grab our chance. In the end, the best overall package won: a sensational team that triumphed in a full class of cars. We are extremely happy."
The overall tally for BMW in the 2010 VLN Endurance Championship is an impressive one: The BMW drivers scored no less than 123 class wins over the course of the season. In total, BMW has more than 1,200 VLN class victories to its name since 1990. Over the past ten years BMW has won seven titles in this series.
Whether BMW M3 GT2, BMW Z4 GT3 or BMW M3 GT4: The current cars forming part of the customer racing product range of BMW Motorsport took to the track in the VLN and delivered successful races. The best overall result came in the third race of the season, when Team BMW Motorsport finished second and third with their BMW M3 GT2 cars. At the season opener the team claimed a third-place finish. Following the promising preparation races, BMW experienced a successful 24-hour race at the Nurburgring, with Jorg Muller (DE), Augusto Farfus (BR), Uwe Alzen (DE) and Pedro Lamy (PT) scoring the 19th victory for the brand at this classic.
In the ninth VLN race of the year, two BMW works drivers returned to the podium, namely Dirk Adorf (DE) and Jorg Muller. This time the pairing was running a BMW Z4 GT3, fielded by Schubert Motorsport, and came third overall.
-source: bmw
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