Nordschleife specialist Mathilda Racing returned to victory in the VLN’s fifth round, the 6-hour ADAC Ruhr-Pokal-Rennen.

The team’s CUPRA, driven by Matthias Wasel, Fredric Yerly and Roland Schmid completed 37 laps of the road course in the Eifel forest and was classified 21st overall out of the 144 starters.

The Norwegian team Møller Bild Motorsport placed its Audi RS 3 LMS in second place of the TCR class, one lap behind the winners. The Audi was shared by Håkon Schjærin, Atle Gulbrandsen, Kenneth Østvold and Anders Lindstad.

The Max Kruse Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI cars that had finished 1-2 in the previous event of the series had a black weekend. Benjamin Leuchter and Andreas Gülden did not post a qualifying lap due to a gearbox issue; the team managed to rebuild the gearbox, in time for allowing them to start from the back of the grid, but they were stopped after two laps by a brake failure. The sister car of Loris Prattes and Jasmin Preisig was running in second place until it suffered from a gearbox issue as well and retired with only ten minutes to go.

The VLN will resume with round 6 on September 7th.

Race

1. Mathilda Racing, CUPRA (Wasel / Yerly / Schmid), 37 laps

2. Møller Bil Motors., Audi RS 3 LMS (Schjærin / Gulbrandsen / Østvold / Lindstad), 1 lap

3. Max Kruse Racing, Volkswagen Golf GTI (Preisig / Prattes), 3 laps