Nürburgring Endurance Championship

Top Tens for both BMW GT3 teams in NEC Round 6

by Fischer Motorsport PR

August 2, 2021 09:29 PM CET 696 Views

Sunday’s iRacing NEC Round 6 served as the unofficial finale of the summer stretch of the 2021 iRacing NEC season. In an entertaining race, Fischer Motorsport was able to claim top ten finishes for both its BMW M4 GT3 before heading into a much anticipated five-week summer break now.

After five NEC races so far this season at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, Fischer Motorsport was still waiting for its first win in GT3 competition since returning to the top class of the series this year.

Sunday’s championship round 6 did not bring the team’s first win, but still an overall successful outcome with top ten finishes for both cars the team entered in the race.

Pascal Theis and Niclas Pedersen put forth a strong outing en route to a seventh-place finish in the No. 85 BMW M4 GT3 after starting from eleventh place on the grid.

More importantly, it was the first incident-free race for the team in a while, putting a smiley on everybody’s face.

“It feels great. It’s really great, man. We really needed this. This is just as important as the finishing position.”, Niclas Pedersen said, asked about how it feels to finally get through an NEC race again incident-free.

“I was so focused today. I really wanted to get a clean race in before the summer break. And we did it. I’m really happy about that. I remember on lap one, we almost got into a wreck, because another car spun on the exit of Warsteiner-Kurve. That was really close. But after that, it was fine.”, a very happy and content Pascal Theis said after the race.

The seventh-place finish, of course, helped put a smile on the entire No. 85 BMW team as well. It was the team’s third consecutive top ten finish in the series.

Hoping to put an end to its streak of DNFs, the sister car No. 84 BMW M4 GT3 with Florian Volk and Benjamin Fischer got off to a great start. Volk was the starting driver after qualifying the car seventh on the grid with a lap of 7:54.764 –one of the fastest qualifying laps for Fischer Motorsport this year.

The Grebenhain, Germany driver continued a strong start into the weekend by avoiding a wreck ahead at Hochaichen to move into sixth position and after that, completing a pass to take over P5.

Lap 5: Running in fifth position after a strong start, Florian Volk gets punted off the track at Aremberg

However, the joy was short-lived after that as the No. 84 team was once again plagued with bad luck. Entering Aremberg, Volk’s car was hit and punted off the race track by the Audi R8 LMS holding sixth position.

“Something felt not quite right in the car after that hit. I don’t know what it was, I assume I had a tire go flat or something. But it just didn’t feel right. And then all went wrong for us, unfortunately.”

At Ex-Mühle, Volk hit the barrier hard and the suspension of the car broke in the process. Trying to recover and get back to the pits, a fast-approaching Mercedes AMG GT3 hit Volk again at Kesselchen.

After a slow return to the pits, the team frantically tried its best to repair the damage and sent Volk back out on track, now holding 21st position.

The 26-year old was able to get the team back to P12 by the midway point of the race, as other teams crashed or retired from the race.

With less than two hours remaining, team-mate Benjamin Fischer jumped in the car at the driver swap pit stop and went on a rally to bring the team a lucky top-ten P10 finish, thanks to another late retirement of a front-running team.

“It’s disappointing that we had another race with crashes today. We’ll use the summer break to recharge our batteries and try to make a push for the fall. But overall, it’s just not been our summer and a difficult season.”, Benjamin Fischer said.

“The race was killed for us with that punt on lap five. Everything was going great up until that point. But what can you do? They just missed the braking point and took us out. It happens. I tried my best today, but overall I also don’t feel it was my best run.”, explained a very self-critical Volk.

With six of nine championship rounds in the books, the No. 85 BMW team sits 34th in the official championship standings at 528 points, with the No. 84 BMW right behind in 35th, only two points back.

The iRacing Nürburgring Endurance Championship now enters a five-week summer break before returning to action with the six-hour NEC Round 7 on Sunday, September 5th.

Official Race Results - 2021 iRacing NEC Round 6, Split 2

Official Race Results - 2021 iRacing NEC Round 6, Split 4