03 Aug Konrad Motorsport defends championship lead in Austria

Posted at 17:50h in news, Porsche Carrera Cup by

With good results Christian Engelhart and Christopher Zoechling successfully defended Konrad Motorsport’s championship lead in the team standings of the Porsche Carrera Cup. At the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg Engelhart celebrated the fourth place twice. Now he is the first pursuer of table leader Earl Bamber. Rolf Ineichen claimed his eighth victory of the season in the B-class in Styria.

In the qualifying on Saturday it became once again visible how balanced the starting field of the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany is. Despite a fast lap-time, only one tenth of a second behind the pole-position, Christian Engelhart had to be satisfied with starting positions seven and four. “A tenth of a second is not more than four meters – the length of my car,” he found out. In the first race he defended his starting position successfully and collected 14 important championship points for the fourth place.

Also the second race on Sunday morning went according to plan for Christian Engelhart. While Nicki Thiim and Michael Ammermüller were fighting each other in front of him, Engelhart cleverly used the situation and overtook the Dane. After 19 laps it was again the fourth place for the German. Thanks to his solid performance he climbed from the fifth position to the second place in the drivers’ championship.

Local hero Christopher Zöchling did not have an excellent start into his home weekend. “In qualifying we were not really lucky with our strategy,” explained the Austrian, who travelled to the Red Bull Ring as the championship leader. “Afterwards we knew that it would have been better to also use the second new set of tires.” From starting position nine he made it at least to the eighth place on Saturday. On Sunday the race driver, who lives in England, did not score any points. In the championship the 26-year-old still covers a respectable fifth place – only eleven points behind his team-mate Christian Engelhart.

Rolf Ineichen celebrated a perfect double victory. The man from Switzerland claimed his seventh and eighth win in the Bclass. After ten of in total 18 races completed, he leads his category comfortably by 28 points. “The races went really well, I had many exciting battles,” summarized the 36-year-old. “It really was a lot of fun. The team gave me a fast car.”

Also for Franz Konrad the Spielberg-Weekend was a real home-race. The team principal of Konrad Motorsport was born in Graz, which is only 70 kilometers away from Spielberg. “When I take a look at the standings, I can be really happy with my home race,” was his conclusion. “Of course a podium-result would have been nice. But we have to focus on the overall standings – there the numerous points for the fourth places are extremely important.”

The squad from Verl (Germany) now looks forward to a race-free weekend, until the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany’s season continues in two weeks. On the Nürburgring season’s races number eleven and twelve are on the schedule.
Especially Christian Engelhart has good memories to the Eifel-Circuit: “Last year I was on top of the podium there,” remembers the man from Kösching (Germany).