Last week one of the highlights took place for Rinaldi Racing. The team supported the Ferrari 488 GT3 from the Wochenspiegel Team Monschau. Georg Weiss, Oliver Kainz, Jochen Krumbach, and Daniel Keilwitz shared the work behind the steering wheel in the ProAm class.
Already on Wednesday, the Adenauer Racing Day took place where some chosen racing cars were presented. The ambiance of the fans was great and also the number of spectators was huge.
Finally, on Thursday afternoon, the first sessions started. The drivers could adapt themselves to the high temperatures and to the track conditions by night. Already at the first qualifying, the drivers had good lap times and ended up on the fifth position overall. Good conditions for the next days.
On Friday morning, the second qualifying was underway. The drivers felt very well in the Ferrari 488 GT3 and kept up with the speed of the leaders. In the last lap of the qualifying, Daniel Keilwitz showed a brilliant performance. With a lap time of 8:14.591, he reached the first place overall. An excellent effort, which reflected the performance of the Italian racing car. So Rinaldi Racing was qualified for the Top30 qualifying.
For the Top30 qualifying, Jochen Krumbach started in the Wochenspiegel Ferrari. All 30 racing cars queued up on the start and finish line and were released one by one all ten seconds. Already in his first lap, Jochen Krumbach reached a lap time of 8:16.365 – a great lap for the team. At the end, Rinaldi Racing reached a terrific fourth position with not even a gap of one second of the pole time.
So the team started from position four and the second starting grid into the race. On time at 15.30 o’clock, the first start group was released. Oliver Kainz immediately gained one position. After the first pit stop and the driver change to Jochen Krumbach, the team lived a little moment of shock: while rejoining the track after the pit stop, he was hit by a Porsche and the Ferrari spun. Luckily, the car was not damaged and after a few minutes could drive on. Until the nightfall, the Ferrari went well and the drivers could keep up with good lap times. During the night, the drivers completed double stints and were able to stay in the Top10. In the early morning, Georg Weiss went behind the steering wheel. Also during his stint, he had no problems. In the last hour, the Ferrari with the starting number 22 was on the 11th position. Jochen Krumbach drove the final stint. Nobody expected the upcoming events. 20 minutes before the end of the race, the teams were told about rain on track. Now, it was time to decide correctly: to stay on slicks or to change to wets. Jochen Krumbach decided to change to wets. The Ferrari came into the pits. With a super fast pit stop, the mechanics showed a great performance and Krumbach was back on track. The tire change to wets was the right decision. On the last two laps, Krumbach could overtake some other cars and at the end, reached the seventh position overall. As well the driver around Georg Weiss reached the victory in the ProAm class.
Michele Rinaldi: „What a race and what a week for our team. A Top10 position as customer team in the middle of all factory teams, that is a great result. To summarize: 7th position overall, first in the ProAm class, fastest lap time during all sessions with a 8:14.591 and fastest lap time during the race with a 8:19.375. What else could you wish for. The drivers did an amazing job. They drove lap by lap without any problems and moved forward again and again. Also a big thank you to the mechanics who work properly during all pit stops, especially at the last unscheduled pit stop. We accomplished the 24h Nürburgring as real customer project. The Ferrari is really suitable as customer racing car, where the customer is supported and put forward. With the combination of the Ferrari as customer racing car and the good product of Michelin, it is a reliable and solid complete package for Bronze drivers. There, they can live out their terrific passion fort motorsport. Again thank you to Georg Weiss, without him, the project was not realizable.
