BLACK FALCON wins VLN season highlight

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VLN round 5: race report

BLACK FALCON’s return to the top-flight SP9 class of the VLN endurance series has been rewarded with a fine victory at round five of the 2018 championship. It’s a victory made even sweeter by the fact that VLN5 was also the annual six-hour race, making the race distance half as long again as a regular round, proving the team’s expertise in long-distance endurance racing. The win comes off the back of an unbroken run of scoring podiums and class victories in every GT3 race they’ve entered this year. 

BLACK FALCON beat a field that was 167-cars strong and included 15 GT3-specification machines, and the excellent overall result was back up by another podium in the SP10 class for GT4 cars. The race saw high attrition, with 46 cars retiring and 116 classified finishers at the end of the marathon distance. 

Raceday began well for the crew of the #6 Mercedes-AMG GT3, Hubert Haupt (Germany), Adam Christodoulou (United Kingdom), Manuel Metzger (Germany) and Gabriele Piana (Italy). They headed the other SP9 runners by over a quarter of a second to be fastest in the 90-minute qualifying session that took place early on Saturday, and lined up at the head of the first wave of starters confident they were in a strong position for the race. 

Adam took the race by the scruff of its neck from the moment the lights went green: he blasted cleanly away, leading the pack around the Nürburgring Grand Prix circuit and out onto the legendary Nordschleife for the first time. After taking over #6 for the second stint, Manual handed over to Hubert, who as ever put in a scorching performance to further secure their lead, which Gabriele would go on to further consolidate. With 45 minutes to go, #6 came into the pits for its final stop; the mechanics carried out their tasks with their usual calm professionalism, checking over the car to make sure that Manuel would have no issues on the run to the flag. This he did, diving to the pit-wall as he crossed the line to the joy of the BLACK FALCON team, with almost a two-minute lead over the second-placed car.

The team also ran a trio of Mercedes-AMG GT4s in SP10. The #163 Black Falcon Team IDENTICA AMG claimed class pole, and in the race took an excellent 19th overall to claim second place in SP10 for Fidel Leib (Germany), Stefan Karg (Germany) and Moritz Oberheim (Germany). Of the pair of AMG GT4s run under the BLACK FALCON Team TMD Friction banner, the #162 crew of Carlos Gomez (USA), Peter Ludwig (USA), Mustafa Mehmet Kaya (Turkey) and Gabriele Piana qualified second in class and would go on to finish eighth in SP10, 37th overall. #164, featuring the driver line-up of Axel König (Germany) and Norbert Schneider (Germany) alongside Vincent and Alexander Kolb (Germany) had a challenging day, starting 50th overall and losing time during the race, but made it home in 78th.

Two of the original four BLACK FALCON Team TMD Friction Porsche entries were unable to participate, and the #395 Porsche 991 Carrera of Christoph Hoffmann (Germany), Uwe Lebens (Germany) and Fidel Leib was unfortunately forced to retire halfway through the race. However, the V5-class #448 Porsche Cayman driven by Martin Meenen (Germany), Christian Reiter (Germany), Johannes Stengel (Germany) and Michael Meadows (United Kingdom) came home fifth in class, making up three positions in class during the race.

A win at the famous Nürburgring circuit is always particularly pleasing for the local team, who are based just minutes from the track, and is never taken for granted. The quality of competition in the VLN is always high, and every victory is hard won: not just against the high level of competitors, but also the mighty challenge of the Nürburgring itself. It’s why BLACK FALCON compete, and why they’ll be back at the Nürburgring in the very near future. 

You can support Team BLACK FALCON across all social media platforms: follow the team via twitter.com/TeamBlackFalcon, facebook.com/teamblackfalcon/ and instagram.com/teamblackfalcon to get live action updates direct from the tracks, as well as fantastic images of the team in action