Lisowski extends overall lead with race victory, TV stars fight hot battle for GRIP crown

Mateusz Lisowski is the winner of the sixth round of the Volkswagen Scirocco R-Cup at the Nürburgring. The Pole who leads the standings crossed the finish line in first place after 14 laps and took his third victory of the season in front of Daniel Lloyd from the UK and last year’s winner Aditya Patel (India). In the field of the prominent rally entrants Uwe Nittel in the near-275-hp bio natural gas race car showed the strongest performance in 13th place. A particularly hot battle at the rear of the field was fought by the TV stars of the RTL II car programme GRIP, Niki Schelle, Matthias Malmedie, and GRIP guest Axel Stein – in the end the professional ex rally driver Schelle prevailed.

In typical Eifel weather the 27 racers on the 3.629-kilometre Nürburgring delivered a captivating race with thrilling overtaking manoeuvres to the crowd. Right after the start Patel overtook pole sitter Lisowski. Afterwards both easily outperformed their immediate rivals. Five laps before the end of the race Patel had to let the quick Pole pass again and on the last lap the Briton Daniel Llyod pushed past last year’s winner as he had saved his push-to-pass trials for the last third of the race. In the overall classification Lisowski now leads with 248 points, in front of Daniel Lloyd (201) and Ola Nilsson (187). In the Junior Cup classification Thomas Schöffler took the full number of points but rookie Moritz Oestreich remains the front runner.

Nittel is quickest rally ace, Schelle and Malmedie fight duel for the GRIP crown.The former world championship runner-up in the N Group, Uwe Nittel, in 13th place clinched the rally classification in front of the two youngsters Christian Riedemann (14th) and Hans Weijs jr. (17th) who will both contest the ADAC Rallye Deutschland for Volkswagen two weeks from now. In the last third of the field the GRIP stars Niki Schelle, Matthias Malmedie and comedian Axel Stein fought a spectacular battle. Axel Stein in particular showed his driving skills when he was sent into a spin by ex-rally pro Schelle at a speed of 170 km/h and kept the car on track by reacting a lightning speed.

The race was also watched by numerous prominent motorsport fans including the 1990 football world champion Thomas Häßler, Schalke pro Hans Sarpei, the former swimming world champion Mark Warnecke as well as actress Yvonne de Bark and TV host Milka Loff-Fernandes.

Kris Nissen, Volkswagen Motorsport Director: “Congratulations to the winner Mateusz Lisowski. The Scirocco R-Cup today again delivered top-class sport and thanks to the push-to-pass system the spectators again saw numerous overtaking manoeuvres. Generally speaking, it’s not easy to drive at the Nürburgring in changing weather conditions.”

Mateusz Lisowski: Qualifying: 1 – race 1: “I’m overjoyed. It’s been a fantastic weekend for me. It wasn’t easy on rain tyres because the track dried off quickly. Aditya made life difficult for me today but fortunately I was able to snatch the lead from him again shortly before the end of the race.”

Aditya Patel: Qualifying: 2 – race 3: “The start went well because I pushed past Lisowski in turn one. Afterwards I was able to keep him at bay for a while but in the end he was simply too strong. Maybe I pushed too hard at first because in the second half of the race I hardly had any grip left on my tyres. That made it possible for Daniel Lloyd to pass me on the last lap. But on the whole the Nürburgring is a good track for me. Last year I won and now I’m on the podium again – I’m quite happy with that.”

Matthias Malmedie: Qualifying: 25 – race 23: “That was definitely the coolest race of my life. I fought some outstanding duels with my GRIP colleagues Niki Schelle and Axel Stein. If I’d saved one more push-to-pass trial for the end I’d have been able to pass Axel. But ‘well done’ to Axel, also with respect to how he kept control of the car when Niki turned him around at 170 km/h – that was absolutely a class act. The race has been huge fun in every respect.”

Axel Stein:Qualifying: 26 – race 22: “I’ve seldom had as much adrenaline as I’ve had today. It was a tremendous race and particularly with Matthias and Niki I fought some fierce duels. When Niki pushed me in the rear at full speed into the NGK chicane and I slid almost 200 metres with smoking tyres: that was heavy. Naturally, my tyre grip was gone after that and I’m only happy that in the battle for the GRIP crown I didn’t finish last.”

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