It’s been almost thirty
years since the last time a Ferrari was first past the
flag in an endurance race over the long version of the
Nürburgring, commonly known as the Nordschleife. This
weekend, that feat was repeated when the 458 Italia GT2,
entered by the Farnbacher-Hankook team and crewed by
Marco Seefried and Jaime Melo won the 6 Hour Race, the
third round of the VLN (Veranstaltergemeinschaft
Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring) Endurance Racing
Championship.
The German team ran the only Ferrari among the 150 cars
entered, to secure the Maranello marque’s first victory
in this endurance championship for GT cars. The racing
version of the 458 proved to be competitive straight out
of the box as this first overall win follows on from
class wins in the Le Mans Series at the 1000 Kms races
at Le Castellet and Spa-Francorchamps.
As usual, the race was subdivided into three categories
on safety grounds. Straight into the lead went the
Mercedes of Alexander Roloff (Rowe Racing,) taking off
ahead of Klaus Abbelen in the MSC Adenau Porsche and
Pierre Kaffer in the Mamerow/Rowe Racing) Mercedes. For
the first two hours, the Ferrari, with Seefried at the
wheel, stuck in tenth spot, until the rain played its
part, causing various accidents among the minor
categories.
At the end of the
third hour, Seefried handed over the 458 Italia GT2 to
team-mate Melo and the Brazilian began a great climb up
the order, which with one hour remaining, found him
leading the field, fighting off the Porsche of Marc Lieb,
Timo Bernhard and Arno Klasen (Manthey Racing) and the
BMW Motorsport car of Jorg Muller, Augusto Farfus and
Pedro Lamy, who crossed the line second and third
respectively. “It was a perfect race, without any
mistakes thanks to a great job from the entire team,”
said Melo after the podium ceremony. “We could not have
hoped for better on a such a technical and demanding
circuit as the Nürburgring.”
