24 Hours of Nürburgring, 20/05/2013

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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