Datum: 24.09.2015 · Sonstige

Pole at the BES season-final on the Nürburgring

Pierre Ehret has finished the last race of the Blancpain endurance series 2015 as 6th in class. At his homerace on the Nürburgring the duo of Ehret and his teammate Alexander Mattschul secured a pole-position like last year. But their fortune left in the race, where incidents prohibited again a better result.

At the final heat on the Nürburgring the Car Collection Mercedes SLS duo secured their first pole-position of the season. „I left Alexander the opportunity for the best lap, as he is much more common with the Nürburgring than me. He used the temperature of the tyres very well and so we finally got our first pole of this season.“ summarized Ehret after Qualifying. It was the first success for the german crew with the Mercedes, while last season the 2 german pilots had 2 Poles, 3 wins and one further podium on their bill in the series with their Ferrari.

Unfortunately the race in the 55 car big field did not start that well: „ I experienced a spin in the opening laps that threw us back on 6th in class. I made up some positions until the first safety-car came out and the team asked me to switch on a more fuel-efficient mapping. Somehow I missed to switch that off when the race went back to green and so we lacked some power which was not so obvious during the stint, but lost us some valuable time“

„When I handed the Mercedes over to Alexander we were 6th in class. He did his best to reduce the gap to the front but in his first stint he experienced some troubles with his belts, which costed further seconds on the 3rd and final stop. In the end we finished as 6th of 10 Am-Teams in the Gentleman-class.“

Ehrets conclusion of the season of the Blancpain endurance series 2015 is somehow modest after 4 contested races: „Our first year with the Mercedes was full of minor technical incidents which costed us a lot of positions and better results. At the start of the season I had to learn to adopt to the handling and the limit-characteristics of the SLS GT3, which are fairly different to the Ferrari F458 GT3 I used to drive the last seasons. Currently we and the team are in the process of considering our options for 2016. But before I will contest my next homerace in California, the 25hours of Thunderhill, which I want to win again with our Porsche 911 GT3 in next december.“