BLACK FALCON is ready for Nürburgring´s season highlight
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Meuspath. On the upcoming weekend the 44th edition of the legendary ADAC Zurich 24h-Race takes place at the Nürburgring. BLACK FALCON will compete with a total of six cars - Three Mercedes-AMG GT3 and three Porsche race cars.
Three Mercedes-AMG GT3s are entered by the team, with AMG - Team BLACK FALCON proudly representing the factory AMG Performance brand at the Nürburgring – nine Mercedes-AMG GT3 are entered in total. AMG - Team BLACK FALCON’s Mercedes will be running in the headline SP9 class for GT3-spec machinery. Up against the team will be almost 40 opponents running in that top category, representing the cream of luxury sportscar manufacturers: BMW, Bentley, Porsche, Audi and more.
Two Mercedes will be running under the AMG - Team BLACK FALCON banner. Car #4 is running with SAP branding and features a star-studded line-up. Five-time DTM champion and ex-Formula 1 driver Bernd Schneider will be driving alongside a super-fast trio of young guns: Adam Christodoulou (United Kingdom), Manuel Metzger (Germany) and Maro Engel (Germany). #9 carries the iconic blue and yellow livery of Bilstein and its crew consists of more Nordscheife veterans: Yelmer Buurman (Netherlands), Hubert Haupt (Germany) and Dirk Müller (Germany), with Maro Engel pulling double duty across both #4 and #9.
The BLACK FALCON #14 Mercedes-AMG GT3 will see Abdulaziz Al Faisal (Saudi Arabia) driving alongside regular partners Gerwin (Netherlands) and Indy Dontje (Netherlands), but for the 24 Hours they’ll be joined by a special guest: former World Touring Car Champion and two time WTCC race-winner in 2016, Rob Huff (United Kingdom). Rob will have a busy weekend, as the WTCC forms part of the build-up to the 24-hour race itself: no sooner will he have completed racing in the WTCC than he’ll be putting on his BLACK FALCON race suit.
BLACK FALCON Team TMD Friction will enter the great race with three Porsche. In class SP7 Porsche 991 GT3 Cup "BF" #64 will compete once again to take the chance of defending last years win and score a "hattrick" of three consecutive wins at the 24h-race. The car will be driven by it´s regular VLN-pilot Alexander Toril who will be joined by Andreas Weishaupt, Artutro Deivgus and Mario Farnbacher. Weishaupt already won the SP7 with BLACK FALCON back in 2014. Devigus is a Nordschleife expert as well and has competed with BLACK FALCON in VLN and the 24h of Dubai. However Farnbacher will make his debut with BLACK FALCON but brings in a lot of experience as a VLN regular with a Lexus GT3.
In class V6 of the most powerful production cars BLACK FALCON Team TMD Friction wants to defend the title as well. VLN´s regulars Aurel Schoeller and Miguel Toril will be joined by "Philip" and Andre Kuhn in their Porsche 911 Carrera (#140). Both Kuhn and "Philip" were part of the winning quartette of 2015.
A four times 24h-race premiere will be celebrated with the drivers of the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport #351 in the all new class CUP3. "Sugar Mountain", Christian Bjørn Hansen, Stefan Karg and Runar Vatne will enter their first ever 24h-race at the Nurburging after preparing with BLACK FALCON for the event for at least half a year. The drivers quartett became very fast and consistent therefore they want to fight for the win although it´s their 24h-debut.
The ADAC Zurich 24h-Race kicks off with a free practice on Thursday 15:45 local time. After two qualifying sessions on Thursday evening and Friday morning the overall pole-position will be fought by the fastest cars in the so-called "Top-30-Qualyfiying" at 19:50. The race start is on Saturday 15:30 and will be broadcasted 24h live on RTL Nitro and on the official website. During Formula 1 broadcasting by RTL there will be live coverage on RTL as well, pushing the popularity of Nürburgring´s season highlight even higher to new records.
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