With the main racing season drawing to a close in Europe, Team BLACK FALCON have cast further afield to satisfy their racing passion: across the Atlantic to the new-for-2017 24H COTA USA endurance marathon. This sees the debut race in the United States for the Creventic organisation behind the 24H Series, adding to the other blue riband events on the continent such as Daytona and Sebring. There’s no tougher environment than a 24-hour race, and the Circuit Of The Americas provides the perfect layout to stretch the teams further. The blind crest of turn one leads through a complex snake of ultra-fast lefts and rights before hitting the kilometre-long, flat-out back straight; the triple-apex of turns 16-18 towards the end of the lap will push traction to the limit. The race will be staged in two parts, with a 14-hour opening segment on the Saturday completed by the final 10-hour run to the flag on the Sunday, the starting positions for Sunday reflecting the results from the previous day’s running.

The finale of the 2017 VLN championship saw Team BLACK FALCON involved in a breath-taking battle for the lead over the majority of the four-hour race, which ended with the team’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 taking an excellent class win in SP9 and second place overall from 145 starters. This repeated the team’s result in the previous, penultimate round, and brought the team’s tally of class podium finishes during the 2017 season to an impressive 18 trophies. Team BLACK FALCON continued their long-standing partnership with AMG during 2017, proudly representing the brand in VLN and bringing home two of AMG’s best results with second overall at VLN 8 and 9, to reinforce Haribo Racing’s second place at VLN 2, as well as finishing as the best Mercedes-AMG at the Nürburgring 24 Hours.

At the season finale of the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany, Black Falcon scored a victory and another podium in each driver category. Overall winner of the 13^th race of the season on Saturday was Christian Engelhart (DE), while Carlos Rivas (LU) scored a phenomenal second place in the amateur cup. On Sunday morning Black Falcon achieved another victory in the last race of the season: Rivas was victorious in the amateur cup with an impressive gap to the second placed car of 10 seconds. Engelhart secured himself another podium finishing third overall. Gabriele Piana (IT) fought back after a tough qualifying session and gained several positions in both races finishing eighth (Saturday) and eleventh (Sunday).

The penultimate round of the 2017 VLN championship has resulted in a fine second-place finish overall for Team BLACK FALCON, which along with another pair of class podiums from their Porsches has brought the team’s tally to 17 podium finishes during the season so far. The four-hour race around the Nürburgring Nordschleife comprised 164 entries, and treacherous conditions caused heavy attrition early in the race, but all four Team BLACK FALCONcrews put in impressive performances, braving the elements and avoiding all the incidents to score their excellent finishing positions. The team’s development Mercedes-AMG GT4 took a different path over the weekend: after competing in two rounds of the VLN, Team BLACK FALCON took the car across the border to the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium for a 12-hour endurance race, where it finished second in class and brought home yet another trophy for the team.