After an almost perfect qualifying session on Saturday, ‘Team Deutsche Post by tolimit’ had to swallow a double dose of back luck at the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland round at the Nürburgring on Sunday. Despite of the pole position, the win of the starting duel and the lead in 22 out of 24 laps, Sean Edwards had to give up the lead in the penultimate lap due to a damaged tyre and saw the start-finish-line in slow drive on position 18 in the end. Outside of the points’ positions, he therefore had to hand over the lead in the driver standings to Nick Tandy. With a gap of only 4 points, however, the Brit still keeps all his title chances and the championship stays open for the remaining two races.
Christopher Mies, who was replacing regular driver Jeroen Bleekemolen this weekend, was fighting with the brake system after having achieved a fabulous 3rd position in qualifying. Being used to racing with ABS brakes in endurance cars, he braked too late in his 911 GT3 Cup race car in lap 18 and span off the track. Unfortunately, he touched some competitors and faced a drive-through-penalty therefore. In the end, he ranked 15th.
Despite of the bad luck, ‘Team Deutsche Post by tolimit’ maintains the lead in the team standings with a gap of 33 points.
Sean Edwards: “Well, this was a perfect race up until the last two laps. I had a great start and we had a car that was becoming better and better in the course of the race. Three laps to the end, I felt something on the back and when I crossed the line for the last two laps the left rear tyre exploded. We don’t know why yet and will sort it out. Of course, that’s disappointing, but with 4 points behind Tandy, everything is still possible and we will make sure to attack again in the next race in Oschersleben to achieve our goal to be on top at the end of the season.”
Christopher Mies: “This was my first standing start for three years and obviously it was not ideal as I lost some places. In the course of the race, I found myself on position 8 and while trying to overtake Uwe Alzen, I braked too late on the dirty side of the NGK chicane. That was definitely my fault. A big sorry goes to Jan Seyffarth and Nicolas Armindo. It was not my aim to finish the race like that.”
tolimit managing Hans-Bernd Kamps: “To sum it up: Good and bad luck are often close together. At the last Supercup race in Budapest it was on our side and today it left us. But everything is still open and our fans, partners and friends will agree that it is more exciting to leave the driver championship open until the very end. Meanwhile we are still dominantly leading the team championship and I am sure that we will achieve our aims in this regard.”
More information on the team is available on www.tolimit-motorsport.de and on www.facebook.com/tolimit.
The race dates:
September 18, 2011 DTM Oschersleben, Germany
October 23, 2011 DTM Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg, Germany