24H Spa G2 Porsche win

juliol 31, 2006 admin

Sunday, 30 July 2006

24 Horas Spa – Porsche win classe G2

In G2, everyone expected to see the Manthey Porsche 997’s dominate and even make a challenge for the podium overall. It was a 1-2 finish for the latest-generation Porsche models, but they claimed the 14^th and 15^th spots overall, after a very rough race. #197 of Lucas Luhr, Sascha Maassen and Marcel Tiemann finished six laps ahead of second-placed #111 of Marc Lieb, Timo Bernhard and Pedro Lamy.

“Our main goal was to come here and do a 24-hour test under race conditions, because as you know the car is brand new,” Lucas Luhr expalined. “For sure there is some work to do before Porsche can give this car to the costumer, but we already know that it can be successful. The good thing was to come here without any pressure for championship points, because Spa is always a really dangerous race for the Championship. It was not an easy race, we spent a little bit of time in the pits, but at the end of the day it is good for all of us.”

“This car was brand new, and we found out what we have to do to improve that car,” said Sascha Maassen. “The performance is there, we were quick during the qualification. Our goal was to be in front of the Ferrari cars, so we were happy the. During the race we also wanted to be in front of them, we missed that but we are going away with good experience and we know in which way to work.”

“There is nothing much to add!,” Marcel Tiemann said. “I’m very happy to be part of the team. I had one 24-hour race before in the Nürbürgring with Manthey and the other guys. So I hope we could do more 24-hours races all together in the future.”

Third in G2 went to the JMB Racing Ferrari 360 Modena of Didier de Radigues, Charles de Pauw, Alain Van den Hove and Paul Belmondo, with the Race Alliance / Duller BMW M3 GTR coming home in a not too distant fourth.