31.10.14 Hard-fought class win at the VLN season finale for Wolfgang Kaufmann

Wolfgang Kaufmann has had two very successful weeks.

It all began with his appearance at the season closing event of the Classic Endurance Series at Portimao. Kaufmann steered an early 1950s Jaguar XK120 round the track in the Algarve in Portugal. In spite of brake problems, he and the car's owner Siamak Siassi collected a class win.

A week later, Kaufmann's personal highlight of the season was to follow. Porsche Kremer Racing again supplied an immaculately prepared, improved Porsche 997 KR for the SP7 class, and Kaufmann together with Kremer Racing's proprietor Eberhard Baunach put the car in 3rd position in class, 9th overall in qualifying.

The battle in SP7 was to be closer than ever before as all front-running cars had professional drivers at the helm. The race was started under wet conditions but fog moved in over the Grand Prix track of the Nürburgring, and race control was forced to stop the race after only two laps.

Following a two hour stoppage, the clocks were set back to 0 and the race started all over again. With the track now dried up, slicks were the order of the day. Kaufmann drove the initial stint and again, as in the previous round of the VLN, was able touse a new tyre construction by Michelin. “The Kremer Porsche and the Michelin tyres were just amazing today”, he said with obvious delight, “the last race already showed a great leap forward in our setup. Today we built on that.”

Kaufmann made his way from position 3 to the top in the SP7 class and in the overall standings ran as high up as 4th place at times. The man from Molsberg remained in the car at the first scheduled stop and continued to make the pace with constantly fast laps in the Kremer Porsche 997. As the second fuel stop drew closer, timing & scoring listed Kaufmann with a slender lead over Rinaldi Racing's Marco Seefried. After so many kilometres as class leader throughout the season, was the desired win finally within reach?

The team decided to pull all the stops. Eberhard Baunach withdrew his entry for the car for health reasons, and the racing professional Kaufmann took on the challenge and ventured back out on to the 24.3 kilometers of the old track. He went the distance on his own.

The duel between Kaufmann and Seefried for the class lead was the main story of the race's closing stages. At the end of lap 19, Seefried used the slipstream to pass Kaufmann at the end of the Döttinger Höhe, half a lap later Kaufmann returned the favour at Bergwerk, and took back P1.

“On the last lap, I had to overtake many slower cars and did not get through so easily, but still I managed to gain a little advantage. I wanted to win, no matter what, and went on an all-out attack”, said “Fighter” Kaufmann about the final kilometres of the race. He maintained his lead and eventually won the SP7 class, and also finished 4th in the overall result. The fastest lap in class was also credited to Kaufmann.

“It was a magnificent, hard-fought victory over tough and fair competitors. Team Porsche Kremer Racing has more than deserved to get this win”, Kaufmann said after the finish, “we were in the lead on so many occasions, only to fall victim to small issues. My thanks go to the entire team, our tyre partner Michelin, and of course to Eberhard Baunach. All of us have worked so hard for this success over the past few weeks, I just had to get to the finish in 1st place!”