It was a good first day for BMW Motorsport at the ADAC Zurich 24 Hours of the Nurburgring. During Practice 1, Dominik Baumann topped the timing charts in the #20 Schubert Motorsport Z4 GT3 with a lap of 8:29.079. Team Marc VDS Racing wasn’t far behind with the #26 Z4 GT3 in third.
As the four-hour first round of qualifying started, the skies above Green Hell opened up and rain began to fall. It didn’t let up until the third hour, thus the fastest times in the qualifying session were near the very end of the session.
The BMW Sports Trophy Teams continued to show good pace as the #26 Marc VDS Z4 GT3 finished sixth. The #25 was in second, but had their time revoked due to a small penalty. Here are how the BMW Teams finished:
P6 – #26 Marc VDS Racing Z4 GT3 – Augusto Farfus, Jˆrg M¸ller, Nick Catsburg, Dirk Adorf
P14 – #19 Schubert Motorsport Z4 GT3 – Dirk M¸ller, Alexander Sims, Dirk Werner, Marco Wittmann
P18 – #20 Schubert Motorsport Z4 GT3 – Dominik Baumann, Claudia Huertgen, Jens Klingmann, Martin Tomczyk
P25 – #17 Walkenhorst Motorsport Z4 GT3 – Felipe Fern·ndez Laser, Michela Cerruti, John Edwards, Daniel Keilwitz
P81 – #18 Walkenhorst Motorsport Z4 GT3 – Henry Walkenhorst, Ralf Oeverhaus, Christian Bollrath, Stefan Aust
For the GT3 teams, the second qualifying session held Friday morning is very important as the Top-30 will move on to an afternoon qualifying round. Not only will this last round set the grid, but qualifying in the Top-30 also permits them to run the blue flashing passing light in their windshield?. This makes it much easier to overtake the slower cars throughout the race.
The rain should subside by the time the track goes hot on Friday, so we should see some close qualifying times. Good luck to all of the ??BMW? Sports Trophy Teams!
