22
WORLD AND LIFE
TCR 2017
ENDURANCE
The Kissling Motorsport Opel Astra TCR car claimed
its maiden victory in the VLN series at the
Nürburgring. Former DTM champion Volker Strycek
and Hannu Luostarinen won the TCR class in the
40. RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen, sixth round of the
endurance series.
They completed 26 laps of the Nordschleife during
the four-hour race and were classified 23rd overall
out of the 155 starters. A close second in the class
was the Audi RS3 LMS shared by Norway’s Håkon
Schjærin, Atle Gulbrandsen and Kenneth Østvold
(the winners of the previous round) that finished
only seven seconds behind the winning Opel.
The Mathilda Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI of
Michael Paatz and Constantin Kletzer completed
the podium one lap down.
The VLN’s seventh round will be the 57. ADAC
Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen on 23rd September.
Autopolis and Fuji hosted the fourth
and fifth rounds of the Super Taikyu
series.
In the Autopolis 3 Hours, the Honda
and Audi cars delivered some close
battles. After an early lead by the
pole sitter Team DreamDrive Audi
(Shozo Tagahara/Takuya
Shirasaka/Naoto Takeda) the Motul
Dome Racing Project Honda Civic
shared by Takuya Kurosawa, Keishi
Ishikawa and Hiroki Kato took
command and eventually won from
the sister car of Modulo Racing
Project (Shinichi Ito/Keiichi
Tsuchiya/ Shinji Nakano).
Last week, the Racingline
Performance Volkswagen Golf GTI of
Phillippe Devesa, Shogo Mitsuyama
and Juichi Wakisaka won the Fuji 10
Hours, the longest round of the
series. They finished 5 laps ahead of
the BRP Audi RS3 LMS (Koichi
Okumura/Kei Akiyoshi/Daisuke
Yamawaki/Yoshizo Ueno), while the
Modulo Racing Project Civic
(Ito/Nakano/Hidenori Kouchi/Ryo
Michigami) finished in third
position.
The Motul Dome Racing Project team
leads the standings with only one
round to go, at Okayama on 22
October.
First victory for the
Opel Astra TCR in the VLN
Honda and Volkswagen win in Super Taikyu