105 race victories counting for Mühlner Motorsport.

105 race victories and counting for Mühlner Motorsport

Looking back at a long and successful 2010 season

Competing in five different race series

Francorchamps. The Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium based Mühlner Motorsport Team took part in 44 races spread over 24 race weekends in the 2010 race season. That made for a very busy year for the ambitious team from the Ardennes but the numerous successes made up for the untold overtime hours.

The season began as early as January in Dubai. Mühlner Motorsport took part in the UAE GT Championship running in the United Arab Emirates from January to April, where they ran the CYTECH Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S. The drivers were Andrew Donaldson in the four races in Dubai and Porsche Supercup ace René Rast in Abu Dhabi. Rast won comfortably on the Jas Marina grand prix circuit and Donaldson was also able to book a win in Dubai.

The European season kicked off with the ADAC GT Masters Weekend in Oschersleben. After a second place in the Saturday race through Kevin Estre and Frank Schmickler in the WEG Porsche 911 GT3 R, Tim Bergmeister and René Rast were able to top that on the Sunday with a win in the year old Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S thanks to clever tactics in tyre choice.

So at this stage the first 3 wins of the season were achieved and a total of 99 on the Mühlner Motorsport Teams account.

At the ADAC GT Masters Weekend in Hockenheim, the series’ third event of the year, Tim and Jörg Bergmeister were able to record the 4^th win of the season and thus the magical 100^th win overall in the history of Mühlner Motorsport. This win also regained the lead in the teams’ points and, together with a 3^rd place on the Sunday, brought Tim Bergmeister up to 2^nd in the points battle as the teams went into their mid-season break.

Accidents at the fourth round in Assen meant all chances of championship success were gone. Tim Bergmeister was best Porsche driver, behind a Lamborghini pairing and an Audi pairing. Mühlner Motorsport were still third in the teams points.

In the FIA GT3 European Championship, which started in early May, speed and performance were always there: the Mühlner cars were almost always the fastest Porsches in the field and the team had many laps in the overall lead. However, the points haul was much lower than might have been expected: accidents, tyre blowouts, stop and go penalties and changing driver line-ups all took their toll on the points tally. This will be different in 2011!

Mühlner Motorsport also took part in the Porsche Sports Cup. Running up to three Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S, the team took in both Super Sports Cup and the 2-hr Endurance Races: 4 outright wins and 2 second places! At the final round of the German Endurance Championship on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, Mühlner Motorsport made a guest appearance in their 5th series of the season with Tim and Jörg Bergmeister at the wheel. This was in preparation for the 2011 season when the team will once again enter the VLN series and the 24hrs on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. A front row start and 125km in the lead of the race showed the impressive performance of the Mühlner Porsche until a broken exhaust manifold took away all chance of a top finish.

A further highlight of Renate-Carola and Bernhard Mühlner’s successful team came on 1. August at their home event, the Spa 24hrs. Their 8th class win on the Ardennes rollercoaster, together with an excellent overall position was the result.The seeds are already sown for the 2011 season: the season will start in January in the Middle East and in the USAThe team, who have already taken part in 33 24hr races, will do two more in January – in the middle of the month in Dubai and at the end of the month at Daytona. In Europe there will be a further two: Nürburgring in June and Spa in July.