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From speedarena.com Touring Car News
Volvo Team Muehlner continues its stranglehold on the German Endurance Championship. The outfit of Spa, Belgium, which led Volvo to its first ever win in the prestigous Nuerburgring 24 Hour Race last summer, won the opening round of the 2004 German Endurance Championship. Team regular Ulli Andree shared the laurels with DTM ace Kurt Thiim of Denmark who made his second guest appearance in the Volvo S60. Thiim lived up to his reputation as crowd favourite number one amongst the German racing fans in the early minutes of qualifying, when the track was still wet. The main Dane climbed up to eighth in the overall leaderboard, placing the Volvo S60 right amongst the more powerful cars like Porsche 911, ALMS-spec BMW M3 and DTM Opel which are enlisted in different classes than the strictly 2,5 litre-Volvo. „When I first drove the Volvo last year, the car didn´t have ABS,“ recalls Thiim. „In conditions like they were this morning, I was really glad that Muehlner has fitted the car with the ABS system. That´s definetly a huge step forward.“ When the track dried out, the Volvo dropped down the order – but Thiim had clearly left his mark. In order to improve the lap time, Thiim had urged the team to send Ulli Andree out on slicks earlier than most of the competitors dared doing so. Andree about his flying lap: „It was too early for slicks, there wasn´t even a dry line – it was way to slippery on most of the parts of the 16-plus miles of the old Nordschleife – I was almost off track no less than three times, but yet, was able to improve Kurt´s time by two seconds.“ This was good enough for the class pole till the track dried out closed to the end of the session, when Rainer Wehner in an ex-DTM-M3 found a clear and dry lap. Thiim then waited some mere ten seconds too long before starting his last qualifying run. „He was running out of time to complete a full installation lap on the entire Nordschleife and start his flying lap coming down the Doettinger Hoehe,“ reported team principal Bernhard Muehlner. „The time left in the session only allowed him for a warm-up lap on the Grand Prix Circuit. He thus had to enter the main straightaway exiting the sharp right-hander of the GP track, which meant he carried significantly less momentum onto the straight than he would have done coming down the long straight of the Nordschleife.“ Hence a time that wasn´t quick enough to bump Rainer Wehner´s BMW M3 off the class pole. Wehner and Thiim immediately got embroiled in a hot battle for the lead right from the start. The Dane followed the BMW in hot pursuit. But Wehner pulled all the stops and kept the Volvo S60 behind him. Ten laps into the race, Thiim had to stop for fuel and handed the car over to Andree. The German drove as aggressively as Thiim had done in his opening stint. After the BMW team had to come in for fuel and a driver change to Hans-Hatto Karl, Andree was right on the BMW´s tail again. After piling on the pressure for a couple of laps, Andree took the lead from Karl and quickly opened up a significant lead. He had to – because the Volvo would have to stop for a splash-&-dash two laps from the end, while the BMW would be able to last the distance without another pit stop. „A splash-&-dash will last for about 40 seconds, in- and out-lap not included,“ calculated Muehlner. „We told Ulli he had to gain two minutes on the BMW to be on the safe side – and he did as he had been told.“ The attack-mode Andree was in proved to be unneccessary, though. Since his rival Karl was suffering from a bad flu, the BMW team had to change its tactic and replace the ill and exhausted Karl after only a handful of laps. Wehner took the wheel again. But the additional pit stop increased the Volvo´s lead to a little more than four minutes. Andree had time enough to come in for the final pit stop two laps before the end and still maintain the lead. The win was his for the taking – and Andree didn´t put a foot wrong, despite slight rain showers during his stint. „It was more of a drizzle, nothing to really worry about,“ he said. „The race ran more or less as according to plan. Once the BMW had to come in for the second stop, it was all just plain sailing for us. Nevertheless, it´s a sweet victory – not least because we have seen that the new aerodynamic package which we have developed over the winter is a significant progress forward. Also, one must not forget that our ultra-successful 2003 campaign has raised the expectations massively. Winning the first race was the right answer and relieved a bit of the pressure off our shoulders.“
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2002 Speed Arena |
