Tristan Viidas took first place in the CUP 5 class at the 24-hour race at the legendary Nürburgring in Germany over the weekend. The marathon race was contested by Estonian Tristan Viidas, Swiss Yannick Mettler, German Heiko Eichenberg and Austrian Torsten Kratz in the Sorg Rennsport team BMW M235i.
The CUP 5 class is a monoclass, in which the 14 cars competing were built according to uniform rules by BMW Motorsport. A total of 150 different machines took part in the race and the quartet finished 34th overall. The rise from 92nd in qualifying was significant.
The first time trial was won, but in the second time trial the yellow flags meant fifth place. The fastest lap of the fifth was interrupted by running out of fuel.
On Saturday, they started from fifth place in their class. Teammates Mettler and Eichenberg moved the car up to third with a good drive, and Viidas also started from that position. Even though the gap to first had narrowed to two minutes, Viidas still took the lead before the pit stop, 18 seconds ahead of his nearest rival. On the last lap, however, he ran out of fuel due to a miscalculation. Fortunately, after restarting the engine, Viidas was able to slowly make it to the pit lane, but had already dropped to fourth, and the gap to first was again more than two minutes. By the end of his shift, however, Viidas had climbed back up to third and had reduced the gap to first by 30 seconds.
The late night/early morning session was spent in heavy rain for Viidase, where he was by far the fastest M235 class driver on track and also set top 15 times overall. He again started his shift in third place and by the end of the shift he had moved the team back into first place, driving back 2.20 minutes from the leader to lead the race by 17 seconds.
Three-and-a-half hours before the scheduled end of the race, the race was abandoned due to heavy fog. Second place was held at the red flag. Although the fog and rain continued to mean difficult conditions, a new start was given according to the running order. However, the team that was leading the race until it was stopped was late to the start for technical reasons and Viidas went into the final 1.5 hour race as the leader. The youngster continued to show his speed in the rain, finishing the race 3.49 minutes ahead of the runner-up. Third place, however, was lost by a full lap.
Second place went to multiple 24-hour winner Michael Schrey, with Florian Nauman, Michael Fischer and Marc Ehret. Third place went to Norbert Fischer, Christian Konnerth, Bendorf Zils Daniel and David Griessner. The overall winners of the race were Richard Lietz, Patrick Pilet, Fred Makowiecki and Tandy Nick in the Porsche 911 GT3 R machine.
"On Friday night we set the strategy for the race with the team. For me, as the 'yellow' of the 24-hour race, it was initially decided to keep the easiest shifts - two in the evening and two in the morning in the white and one before lunch. The weather forecast was for rain in the morning, so I would have to wait until the track was dry before I could take the wheel. In reality, however, everything turned out the other way round, as I was actually left with the hardest shifts.
I rode the first shift from 7pm to 10pm, just as the sun was setting - low sun, which eventually disappears, long shadows and plummeting track temperatures. The shift ended in total darkness.
The hardest shift of the trip also happened to me, between 3am and 6am. Just before I started, a heavy thundershower arrived earlier than planned, so I had to do my shift in pitch darkness and rain, made even harder by the thick fog and general fatigue of the morning sunrise. Nevertheless, I was by far the fastest M235 class car on the track during my shift, as I recovered from a deficit of over two minutes to move up from third to lead. Thanks to this, I got out of the car at the end of my shift to a loud round of applause from the team.
Three hours before the scheduled finish, the race was abandoned due to dense fog. This threw the final plans into disarray and so it was necessary to find the best rider for the last two hours. The team was so impressed with my night shift in the rain that they decided to give me the last and decisive shift, where I had to go out on full banking, as we had dropped back to second in the meantime. Unfortunately, the biggest competitor had a technical problem and had to start from the pit lane. Thanks to this, the tension was on the ground as third place was already lost to us by 8 minutes. However, I kept a good pace until the end of the race and to avoid what happened in the time trial, we decided to make a quick refuelling stop before the last lap, although in theory we should have had enough fuel. This meant that I lost about a minute in time, but I still finished in second place with a lead of about four minutes.
All in all, everything worked perfectly this weekend - the car, the drivers and the teamwork. Personally, I only got four hours of sleep in two days, and that was in two parts, but most of the team members and mechanics didn't even get that. Of course, the extreme weather conditions made life more difficult for both them and the drivers, which is why for me, for the first time in my life, first place in the 24-hour 'green hell' race is just that much sweeter," commented Tristan Viidas himself.
Photo: 1VIER.com
