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STANDINGS
ENDURANCE
The Mathilda Racing Volkswagen
Golf GTi driven by Benjamin
Leuchter and Andreas Gülden won
the TCR class in the first two 4-hour
rounds of the VLN series that takes
place on the Nürburgring
Nordschleife road course.
In the 63. ADAC Westfalenfahrt,
Gülden and Leuchter finished in a
respectable 31st place overall (out of
182 starters); they beat the LMS
Engineering Audi RS3 LMS driven by
Matthias Wasel, Marcus Löhnert and
Artur Goroyan by 9 minutes and 11
seconds, while the Norwegian trio of
Håkon Schjærin, Atle Gulbrandson
and Kenneth Østvold completed the
podium in a second Audi.
Gülden and Leuchter encored in the
43. DMV 4-Stunden Rennen, ranking
39th overall. Second place went to
the Bonk Motorsport Peugeot 308 of
Jürgen Nett, Joachim Nett and
Bradley Philpot which finished one
lap behind the winner and beat the
SEAT León shared by Jens Ludmann
and Arndt Hallmanns by five
minutes.
The TCR concept successfully landed in
Japan at Twin Ring
Motegi, when four TCR
cars took part in the
opening round of the
Super Taikyu.
In the early stages of
the 200-minute race
the Team Dream Drive
Audi RS3 LMS shared
by Shozo Tagahara,
Takuya Shirakasa and
Naoto Takeda and the
Motul Dome Racing
Project Honda Civic
Type-R of Hiroki Kato, Keiji Ishikawa
and Takuya Kurosawa had a close fight
for the lead. However, the Audi
soon dropped back because
of a fuel pump issue.
The fight for the lead shifted between
the two Honda cars run by the Motul
Dome Racing Project and the Modulo
Racing Project driven
by Shinichi Ito,
Shinichi Ebisawa and
Shinji Nakano.
Eventually the former
crossed the line
victorious, beating the
sister car by only 13
seconds.
The two Honda TCR cars
also won the overall
classification, one lap
ahead of a BMW Z4 of
the ST-1 class.