The WINWARD juniors rock the Ring
David Schumacher, Miklas Born and Marius Zug take the class win for WWR at the GT World Challenge Endurance Cup round at the Nürburgring.
With a strong team performance, the WINWARD Racing squad celebrated its first class win of the season in the Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup at the Nürburgring. After three exciting hours, David Schumacher (21, Salzburg/A), Miklas Born (21, Basel/CH) and Marius Zug (20, Munich) finished sixth overall in the number 157 Mercedes-AMG GT3, winning the Gold Cup. This classification is reserved for cars whose driver line-up has a combined FIA rating of at most Gold-Gold-Silver.
Their team-mates Russell Ward (33, Seabrook/USA), Philip Ellis (30, Zug/CH) and Indy Dontje (30, Alkmaar/NL), on the other hand, were very unlucky and had to park the number 57 sister car early after a collision at the start.
In morning qualifying, on a wet but then slightly drying track, the two WWR trios had already shown their ambitions for the afternoon race as the fastest Gold Cup cars, with seventh (#157) and 15th (#57) on the grid. While David Schumacher came through the scramble of the first lap more or less unscathed and immediately settled into the leading group, Ward behind him collided with several rivals in the tight first corner. After a quick tyre change he rejoined the 5.1-kilometre track, but the American had to retire his car for good just one lap later with clear damage to the rear and a leaking radiator.
Meanwhile, the WWR juniors were in brilliant form in the impressive field of 54 GT3 cars from eight different brands. They could not ultimately stay in touch with the overall podium places, but the Gold Cup win was never in danger.
“Big compliments to David, Miklas and Marius,” said WWR team principal Christian Hohenadel. “Already in the difficult conditions yesterday and in qualifying the boys delivered a highly focused performance, and in the race they continued seamlessly. The first Gold Cup win was long overdue and gives the whole team an extra boost. I’m sorry for our veterans, of course. But when 54 supercars turn into such a tight corner after the start, it sometimes gets a bit too tight. A pity, a one-two in the Gold Cup would certainly have been possible. But we don’t want to complain – it was a good race weekend for WINWARD Racing.”
The season finale of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup powered by AWS takes place on 1 October at Circuit Catalunya near Barcelona. Next weekend the team from Altendiez returns to the Nürburgring, where races 7 and 8 of the 2023 DTM are held on the 3.6-kilometre sprint version of the Grand Prix circuit. And the goal of Mercedes-AMG Team WINWARD with runner-up Lucas Auer and David Schumacher is clear: the first podium of the current DTM season!