Latvala Motorsport Oy

NURBURGRING

Nurburgring 24H circuit racing 2010

Between the rallies in New Zealand and Portugal I had an opportunity to improve my skills on tarmac by taking part in Nurburgring 24H endurance racing with Ford Focus RS. The race was driven on old Nordschleife and GP-course combined (totally 27 kilometers). It took me about 20 circles to memorize the course which I had already done about a month before the actual race. Nordschleife (22.81km) reminds more of a fast tarmac road with hills and valleys than a common racing course. My team in the race was FH Cologne Motorsport which members study motor technology in the University of Cologne and they are sponsored by Ford. (The team takes part in VLN-series; all of their races are driven on Nurburgring). Our team started the competition well because after four hours we were 72 nd overall and second in our class but then things got more difficult. Just before it was my first turn to drive the power steering belt stopped working. The belt was changed and I was able to drive but the car had lost 50 to 80 horse powers and the more I drove the worse the engine felt. On the last circle of my driving turn the engine took only 5000 rpm. Luckily I was able to get to the pit. The technicians searched the engine and they noticed that the belt had broken sometime earlier because of a part from some other car which had damaged the engine at the same time. The technicians were able to change the engine during three hours (very respectful) and so we could continue the competition. We dropped about 100 positions in the results but the main thing was that we were still in the race. After changing the engine the car ran fine and we started to rise in positions. After this there were no more bigger problems for us. I didn't drive at night which I want to experience in the future but I got to drive three times and I was allowed to drive to the finish in front of a huge audience. I drove all together 29 circles in the race which is very good for my rally driving on tarmac. Our team was 117 th overall and 6 th in our class. I drove one fastest time in our class so the car was very competitive and without problems we would have been fighting for the victory of our class. My teammates were Daniela Schmid, Anja Wassertheurer and Stefan Schlesack.

BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team's Jari-Matti Latvala in action at the Nurburgring 24-hour race in a Ford Focus RS

Team FH Koln Motorsport at the Nurburgring 24-hour race