5.05.09 2nd place for Wolfgang Kaufmann

The Spring Cup at Masarykring in Brno opened this year's Czech Endurance Championship season. For Wolfgang Kaufmann, the 3 hour race was a good start into the year.

Pitstop - Wolfgang Kaufmann hands the car over to Alexander Talkanitsa

Champagne shower at the award ceremony

With the AT Racing Corvette C5-R, Kaufmann and team mate Alexander Talkanitsa managed a second place overall against much stronger opposition. In a field of first rate contenders, a number of DTM cars as well as current GT2 and GT3 vehicles lined up to take the start. „Making the podium in this field, with an older GT1 car such as our Corvette, is a dream result for us“, Kaufmann rates the result.

Before this encouraging finish, plenty of work had to be done. In qualifying, the Corvette was only good enough for seventh place on the grid: „We brought along a new tyre by Pirelli, which on this C5-R did not work. The team then brought two sets of 2008 FIA-GT tyres to Brno“, Kaufmann explains.

In the warm-up, these tyres helped the car up to fourth position: „but nothing could make up for our power deficit from running with the air restrictor.“

Different to the FIA-GT series, air restrictors are not required in the Czech championship: „but there is no engine mapping for running our C5-R like that. So we had trouble keeping up with the fastest – unrestricted - GT2 cars at times.“

In the initial stage of the race, Wolfgang Kaufmann was able to make up two places and move up to fifth position. He then worked his way up to second place: „The season opener has definitely worked out well for AT Racing and Sepp Renauer's team.“