4.10.10 Ring fight for Wolfgang Kaufmann

The eighth round of the German endurance championship gave Wolfgang Kaufmann the opportunity to race on his favourite track, the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Together with Ralf Weiner he drove a Porsche 996 GT3 R at the „Barbarossapreis“.

GTW Porsche 996 GT3

GTW Porsche 996 GT3

Race day got underway in the most unfavourable circumstances possible for the duo. An accident on the track brought the practice session to a premature end. „Then on a single lap, I did not get the brand new rain tyres up to temperature, and I did the lap without ABS. Since Ralf also had to do a mandatory lap, we simply ran out of time“; Kaufmann sums up the difficult morning.

In the race on Saturday at noon, the ABS quit on Kaufmann/Weiner again, this time during the formation lap. „One bad thing never happens alone: During my nine lap stint, the power steering also failed. At first, it was intermittant, you never knew if you had servo assistance through a corner or not. As of lap 4, I had to wrestle with a complete failurs of the power steering. Interestingly enough, it came back on again two laps before our scheduled pit stop; and after our driver change to Ralf, all electronic systems were back up and running.“

Ralf Weiner drove a splendid middle stint until the left rear tyre exploded on the Döttinger Höhe. Weiner needed the full width of the track to stabilise the car and avoid impact. He slowly brought the car back to the pits, at which point Kaufmann took over the car fort he final stint of the race, and brought the 996 GT3 R home in 3rd position in SP7 for Team GTW.

Kaufmann and Weiner will race together again in the next championship round on October 16.