Markus Palttala finished 5th overall and 4th in class in the traditional 6-hour race held in Vallelunga Circuit near Rome. Palttala shared the Porsche GT3-RSR with long-time friend and JWA-Avila team owner Paul Daniels.
“It was good to be back with Paul and see all the guys from the team. They haven’t been racing since finishing the WEC program end of 2012, so it was more about getting out there and have fun racing. We drove the 2008-spec RSR instead of the newer one we ran last year and it was clear that the modern GT2 and GT3 cars are quite a lot faster. Still, it was good fun and I got my share of track time doing almost 5 hours of driving in the race and it was pretty tough without a drink system. We kept it going and did no mistakes and getting into top 5 was great. Of course, it would’ve been even better with a class podium which was real close.”
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Markus Palttala won today’s RCN round at the Nürburgring Nordschleife driving Team Schirmer’s BMW M3 V8 GT defeating the opposition when the conditions turned tricky in the end of the 2-hour race.
“I got a last-minute call to race for Schirmer to replace their regular driver who couldn’t make it and I was happy to give it a go. The car they have developed is really nice and we proved it today by beating quite a few quick GT cars. To be honest, though, when it started raining and everyone stayed on slicks, I was just trying to make sure I stayed first in our category and 2nd overall, but it turned out I was so much quicker than the leading Porsche that we got to the lead on the last lap despite them starting it with almost 1 minute advantage.”
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Markus Palttala, Bas Leinders, Henri Moser and Richard Göransson were forced to retire when Leinders suffered a heavy crash with a slower car some 7 hours before the end of the race. Until the unfortunate accident, the BMW Sports Trophy Team Marc VDS Z4 #26 was having a strong race and running currently on 3rd position. The sister car of Maxime Martin, Yelmer Buurman and Andrea Piccini joined by Göransson finished a superb 2nd, saving the day for Marc VDS and BMW Motorsport.
”The Nordschleife is always dangerous and even more so in such tricky conditions we had this weekend. Bas’ accident was a real shame as we were running in top 3 and our pace was very good both on wet and dry. We were ahead of the #25, which eventually finished 2nd, so there was more than a good chance to get on the podium. Well, that didn’t happen, but I’m really satisfied with how competitive we were and I’m real proud of the entire Marc VDS team. It has been great for us to act as an official BMW works team and I’d like to thank BMW for their support and confidence in us. Personally, I will go home empty handed, being the quickest BMW driver in qualifying the only small consolidation, but we all were cheering for #25 when Max got from 4th to 2nd during the last hour.”
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