Nürburgring Endurance Championship

Fischer, Pedersen fourth in NEC Round 2

by Fischer Motorsport PR

April 22, 2023 11:30 PM CET 556 Views

Starting from the outside pole, things went awry for the No. 84 Porsche on the opening lap and another spin later at Karussell kept the team off the podium

It was a mixed day of good and bad for Benjamin Fischer, team-mate Niclas Pedersen and the No. 84 Porsche team at the Nürburgring on Saturday.

Fischer, who set a very competitive lap time of 8:03.713 in qualifying put the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup on the outside pole for the four-hour race.

However, on the start Fischer found himself on the wrong end of the action, losing control in a tight position battle at Mercedes arena and spinning out.

As the entire Porsche Cup grid passed on by, Fischer now faced reality of being at the tail end of the field.

In an exciting display of anger management, Fischer wasted no time to put on a rally to get all the way back to third position by the time he reached the second to last lap of his second stint, ready to hand over the car to Pedersen soon.

That’s when Fischer’s luck ran out and a driver error at Karussell resulted in the car getting breached on the banking, unable to move.

In what seemed like an eternity, the team had to call a tow car to help Fischer maneuver the car out of the banking. While the car had no damage, the whole ordeal cost the team several minutes.

Pedersen took over the car for the rest of the race and was able to put on a rally of his own, bring the team back from P7 to a respectable P4 finish in the end.

Still, for the team it was a rather disappointing day, considering where they had started on the grid.

“It wasn’t my best day today. I’ve got to admit that. I am not sure what happened at the start. We were battling for positions there and suddenly I spun out. Maybe it was the cold tires, I don’t know. It just sucks.”, said Fischer.

“But I was having fun getting back into the top-three. Our Porsche was amazing. But then I overdid it going into the Karussell and went in a little too steep, lost the rear and breached the car of all things. I really think we could have challenged for P2 in this race, possibly the win, had it not been for these two mistakes on my part. But it is what it is. No time to waste. I’ll do better next time.”

While Pedersen now travels to the United States for the VSCA race at Laguna Seca on May 6th, Fischer stays in Germany to help the Porsche Cup team prepare for the iRacing Nürburgring 24 Hours that will take place on the weekend of May 13th-14th.