News
Porsche Carrera Cup: Great fifth place for Schnabl Engineeri
02-09-2007
With three cars the team started into the race weekend in the Eifel. Since the truck arrived at the homebase at 2.00 AM on thursday morning from the Porsche Supercup race at Istanbul, one hurried to charge it quickly and about 6.00 AM the truck was already on its way to Nürburgring.
Besides Pierre Kaffer and Jiri Janak a third Porsche of Buchbinder was driven by Christoph Langen, competing his second event this year. The mutiple world- and olympic champion in bobsledding improved from session to session and in qualifying reached rank 33. "A respectable performance", teamchef Schnabl stated.
Kaffer and Janak did much better. Both reached second part of qualifying of the best 15 pilots. Competition was extremely high and the drivers could not allow the slightest mistake. In the end Kaffer took rank eleven just in front of his teammate Janak on twelve. "The first twelve pilots kept just within one second. From seven to twelve it was even only 9/100!. A proof of the high competition. A blink of an eye quicker and we would have been on seven!"
But one was content with the situation in any way and showed optimistic for the race on sunday noon. At the start ex-DTM driver Kaffer was cunning and improved throughout the race, since setup paid off towards rthe race end. He even managed to drive faster than the drivers on top.
"But the gap to the fourth placed René Rast was too big ... or the race too short", teamchef Schnabl explained later. "I think a few laps more and a better result would have been possible!" But the team and the guests were more than happy with the overall performance and since there was a guest starter placed in front of Kaffer he even earned 14 points for rank four!
Less lucky was the race for Jiri Janak. The czech got trouble with his tyres, since he was not able to control breaking force. "Tyres finally were far more square than round..." Five laps to go it got even worse and he had to come into pits. Here one decided not to change tyres and withdrew from the race. "Gap was too big and with one lap missing we would have been chanceless", Janak explained finally.
Christoph Langen on the other hand was happy: "I am content with my performance today. Start was perfect and I could keep the pace. Afterwards I possibly was too careful and tried not to hinder the other pilots since I was only a guest starter. It is important that car saw finish without beeing damaged. I did not expect rank 24 in the end!" Teamchef Sven Schnabl agreed completely and was taken with the performance of his pilot.
Now there is not much time up to the next race. The coming up friday the Porsche Supercup is going to be held at Monza (I). The team truck will make his way to Milan for the 9th round as soon as possible.
Ergebnis Porsche Carrera Cup Nürburgring
Besides Pierre Kaffer and Jiri Janak a third Porsche of Buchbinder was driven by Christoph Langen, competing his second event this year. The mutiple world- and olympic champion in bobsledding improved from session to session and in qualifying reached rank 33. "A respectable performance", teamchef Schnabl stated.
Kaffer and Janak did much better. Both reached second part of qualifying of the best 15 pilots. Competition was extremely high and the drivers could not allow the slightest mistake. In the end Kaffer took rank eleven just in front of his teammate Janak on twelve. "The first twelve pilots kept just within one second. From seven to twelve it was even only 9/100!. A proof of the high competition. A blink of an eye quicker and we would have been on seven!"
But one was content with the situation in any way and showed optimistic for the race on sunday noon. At the start ex-DTM driver Kaffer was cunning and improved throughout the race, since setup paid off towards rthe race end. He even managed to drive faster than the drivers on top.
"But the gap to the fourth placed René Rast was too big ... or the race too short", teamchef Schnabl explained later. "I think a few laps more and a better result would have been possible!" But the team and the guests were more than happy with the overall performance and since there was a guest starter placed in front of Kaffer he even earned 14 points for rank four!
Less lucky was the race for Jiri Janak. The czech got trouble with his tyres, since he was not able to control breaking force. "Tyres finally were far more square than round..." Five laps to go it got even worse and he had to come into pits. Here one decided not to change tyres and withdrew from the race. "Gap was too big and with one lap missing we would have been chanceless", Janak explained finally.
Christoph Langen on the other hand was happy: "I am content with my performance today. Start was perfect and I could keep the pace. Afterwards I possibly was too careful and tried not to hinder the other pilots since I was only a guest starter. It is important that car saw finish without beeing damaged. I did not expect rank 24 in the end!" Teamchef Sven Schnabl agreed completely and was taken with the performance of his pilot.
Now there is not much time up to the next race. The coming up friday the Porsche Supercup is going to be held at Monza (I). The team truck will make his way to Milan for the 9th round as soon as possible.
Ergebnis Porsche Carrera Cup Nürburgring
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time |
| 1 | Richard Westbrook (GBR) | ARAXA Racing | 35:39.596 |
| 2 | Uwe Alzen (GER) | HP Team Herberth | 00:00.470 |
| 3 | Jeroen Bleekemolen (NED) | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup | 00:05.269 |
| 4 | Rene Rast (GER) | MRS-Team | 00:12.278 |
| 5 | Pierre Kaffer (GER) | Schnabl Engineering-EMC | 00:14.222 |
| 6 | Thomas Jäger (GER) | rhino's Wieth Racing | 00:20.611 |
| 7 | Jan Seyffarth (GER) | SMS Seyffarth-Motorsport | 00:21.205 |
| 8 | Oliver Pla (FRA) | MRS-Team | 00:24.691 |
| 9 | Michael Frey (GER) | ARAXA Racing | 00:26.662 |
| 10 | Florian Gruber (GER) | HP Team Herberth | 00:29.241 |
| 11 | Martin Ragginger (AUT) | UPS Porsche Junior Team | 00:32.554 |
| 12 | Adam Lacko (CZE) | Farnbacher Racing | 00:32.840 |
| 13 | Marcel Leipert (GER) | rhino's Wieth Racing | 00:37.493 |
| 14 | Robert Renauer (GER) | Eichin Racing | 00:39.419 |
| 15 | Pascal Kochem (GER) | Eichin Racing | 00:41.099 |
| 16 | Alexander Roloff (GER) | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup | 00:44.796 |
| 17 | Niclas Kentenich (GER) | Car Salon | 00:49.199 |
| 18 | Robert Lukas (POL) | Fuchs-Star-Moto Racing | 00:50.001 |
| 19 | Patrick Hirsch (GER) | Land-Motorsport | 01:06.551 |
| 20 | Jiri Micanek jr. (CZE) | Micanek Motorsport | 01:10.833 |
| 21 | Martin Brückl (AUT) | B.E.M. Brückl Motorsport | 01:11.390 |
| 22 | Florian Scholze (GER) | Land-Motorsport | 01:11.550 |
| 23 | Arkin Aka (GER) | Hermes Attempto Racing | 01:20.066 |
| 24 | Christoph Langen (GER) | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup | 1 lap |
| 25 | Arnold Wagner (GER) | B.E.M. Brückl Motorsport | 1 lap |
| 26 | Bajerlein Bartosz (POL) | Fuchs-Star-Moto Racing | 1 lap |
| 27 | Vladimir Hladik (CZE) | Micanek Motorsport | 1 lap |
| 28 | Philipp Wlazik (GER) | Hermes Attempto Racing | 1 lap |
| 29 | Oleg Kesselman (RUS) | Land-Motorsport | 2 laps |
| 30 | Jiri Janak (CZE) | Schnabl Engineering-EMC | 4 laps |
| 31 | Jörg Hardt (GER) | Farnbacher Racing | not class. |
| 32 | Chris Mamerow (GER) | Mamerow Racing | not class. |
| 33 | Stephanie Halm (GER) | tolimit inventure | not class. |
| 34 | Hannes Plesse (GER) | tolimit inventure | not class. |
| 35 | Nicolas Armindo (FRA) | tolimit | not class. |
| 36 | Lance David Arnold (GER) | UPS Porsche Junior Team | not class. |