BLACK FALCON celebrates two championship titles in one weekend

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Last weekend, BLACK FALCON won two championships across two different racing series. In a memorable season finale of the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland at the Hockenheimring, Carlos Rivas was crowned ProAm champion of the prestigious one-make cup for the fourth year in a row. At the penultimate round of the Nürburgring Endurance Series (NLS) season, Mustafa Mehmet Kaya, Mike Stursberg and Hendrik von Danwitz won the CUP2 AM classification in the Porsche Endurance Trophy Nürburgring (PETN). This means that Kaya has an unbeatable lead one race before the end of the season and is confirmed as AM champion prematurely.

NLS: Early championship title for Mustafa Mehmet Kaya
With his fifth victory in the seventh race, Mustafa Mehmet Kaya secured the amateur title in the Porsche Endurance Trophy Nürburgring prematurely. Kaya and his teammates Mike Stursberg and Henrik von Danwitz started the race with the Porsche 992 GT3 Cup (#104) in a less than perfect manner: A problem with the ABS forced starting driver von Danwitz to pit unscheduled on the very first lap. After the problem could be quickly fixed with an electronics reset, the trio started an impressive race to catch up. Faultless and consistently fast, the drivers of the #104 regained place after place in the following hours. After the last pit stop, Kaya, Stursberg and von Danwitz were again leading the AM classification. Final driver Stursberg brought the Porsche safely to the finish and thus crowned an outstanding season by claiming the AM title early. However, this title will go to Kaya alone in the 2022 season, as Stursberg had to miss a race during the season due to illness.

For the three other BLACK FALCON cars, however, the race did not go according to plan at all. The Porsche 992 GT3 Cup (#102) of BLACK FALCON Team IDENTICA with Tobias Müller and Paul Harkema had to be parked after less than two hours with a broken exhaust. The third BLACK FALCON 992 Cup (#103) of Peter Ludwig, Noah Nagelsdiek and Maik Rosenberg was unable to continue the race after a guardrail contact in the Schwalbenschwanz area. For the BLACK FALCON Team TEXTAR Porsche Cayman GT4 RS driven by Carsten Palluth, Reinhold Renger and Tobias Wahl, the race also ended prematurely after a collision on the Grand Prix circuit through no fault of their own.

PCCD: Fourth title for Carlos Rivas
At the season finale of the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland at the Hockenheimring, Carlos Rivas (#6) created the best possible chances of winning the ProAm title again with a perfect performance already in qualifying. The Luxembourger had travelled to the Hockenheimring with a large points deficit and had to win both races. Rivas withstood the pressure, secured the maximum number of points with two dominant victories and celebrated his third title defence in a row in a turbulent race on Sunday afternoon. Carlos Rivas is now by far the most successful ProAm driver in the history of the series with 49 wins and four titles.

For his teammate Sören Spreng (#5) the weekend was rather disappointing despite a very strong performance. In Saturday's race Spreng was touched by a competitor in the early stages and fell far behind. Afterwards, Spreng did damage limitation and fought his way back up to sixth place in the ProAm standings. On Sunday, the driver from Hemer was in third place in the ProAm standings for a long time before he took second place with an impressive overtaking manoeuvre on the penultimate lap. Just a few corners before the end of the race, however, Spreng was involved in a collision when a competitor in front unexpectedly reduced his speed. Sören Spreng ends his comeback season in the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland in fourth place in the ProAm Championship. With a total of five visits to the podium, Spreng left no doubt that in future the title in the ProAm standings will be his goal as well.

For Loek Hartog (#4), the last race weekend of the season was all about scoring maximum points in the overall standings. After a strong qualifying, the BLACK FALCON junior driver drove a race worth seeing on Saturday, which he finished in fifth place overall after exciting fights for positions. Hartog also started well in the race on Sunday, but had to retire his Porsche early after a puncture. Despite his only "zero", Hartog draws a positive balance and ends his second season in the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland in a strong fifth place overall after a total of four podium finishes.

Timo Frings, Head of Motorsport BLACK FALCON:
"Congratulations to our two champions Mehmet and Carlos! We are very happy to finish the 2022 season with two championship titles like we did in 2021. With Carlos, it was very close at the end, but we never gave up and were rewarded with the title. I am very sorry for Sören's retirement on Sunday, because he had fought so confidently to second place beforehand.

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