ROWE RACING finishes in top-10 on Simona De Silvestro’s strong debut at Nürburgring
St. Ingbert, September 6, 2020 – ROWE RACING has rewarded its home race in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup with a place in the points for a strong recovery. Porsche works driver Simona De Silvestro from Switzerland, former DTM driver Jeroen Bleekemolen from the Netherlands and two-time World Endurance Champion Timo Bernhard made up 15 places in their one-off outing for the team from St. Ingbert in the #98 Porsche 911 GT3 R in the 6-hour race on the GP circuit in the Eifel region, finishing ninth.
The sister car with the #99, on the other hand, unfortunately had to miss the start. In an accident during qualifying on Saturday evening, in which the driver remained largely uninjured, the Porsche 911 GT3 R of this year’s regular trio of German Porsche works driver Dirk Werner, Porsche Young Professional Julien Andlauer from France and Austrian Klaus Bachler was damaged to such an extent that the team would not have been able to make it 100 percent operational again by the time of the start on Sunday morning with the facilities available at the race track. This meant that the original 17th grid position of the #99 was no longer valid, and the Porsche 911 GT3 R with the #98 moved up from 25th to 24th on the grid.
In the race, starting driver Timo Bernhard, who had donned his helmet again especially for the race alongside Simona De Silvestro, made up five places on the turbulent first lap. The man from the Saarland, for whom the Nürburgring is a kind of second living room after five triumphs in the 24-hour race and three victories in the 6-hour race in the WEC, then continued to work his way forward and handed over the wheel to Simona De Silvestro for the first time after 31 laps. The Swiss was equally fast in her first race on the GP circuit and continued to make up ground. On the 48th lap, “Iron Maiden,” as she is known, even managed a spectacular overtaking maneuver when she duped two rivals in one fell swoop down to the Dunlop turn.
Jeroen Bleekemolen took over on the 59th lap and brought the team within touching distance of the points in his double stint, in which Timo Bernhard was then involved for most of the time in his second stint between the 110th and 141st laps. Simona De Silvestro returned to the cockpit for the final phase of the race and defended ninth place for the team with nerves of steel and no mistakes in the end.
Hans-Peter Naundorf, Team Principal ROWE RACING: “For our #98 it was a very good result. In such a dense field and a not exactly overtaking-friendly track from 25th place on the grid to still be in the points is a very strong performance. Simona De Silvestro, Timo Bernhard and Jeroen Bleekemolen showed an absolutely flawless race in this unique combination, did their own thing and cleverly stayed out of trouble. The three of them clearly exceeded all the expectations we had at the beginning of this project. Timo did an absolutely professional job after his long break from racing and Simona celebrated a great debut in an SRO race series. That our #99 could not start in the race after the accident in qualifying is more than tragic, even more so when you see from the performance of the sister car what would still have been possible today.”
Simona De Silvestro, #98 ROWE RACING Porsche 911 GT3 R: “The race went pretty well for us. In our first appearance together with Timo and Jeroen, we did a good job, I think. Timo also supported me a bit, it’s nice to race together with him.”
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