PROsport Racing miss out from early Qualifying pace at the Nurburgring

Consistency remains the aim for the two Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT4’s of PROsport Racing after another round of the DTM Trophy that saw early promise in Qualifying fall short of their hopes and ambitions by the chequered flag.

This time racing at the Nurburgring for the third round of the GT4 series, the #1 car of Tim Heinemann and the #19 car of Mike David Ortmann had hoped for more after recent some post incident repairs after the last round of the series at the Lausitzring and subsequent testing before the weekend, and that was demonstrated with sound qualifying pace from both cars.

Amongst a grid of twenty-two cars, reigning DTM Trophy Champion Heinemann Qualified P5 whilst Ortmann was in P8 – his best place to date but whilst Heinemann barged his way up to P3 going into turn one, Ortmann found himself being pushed wide in into the gravel to recover down in P13.

With each of the two races only being thirty minutes long, that gave Ortmann little time to clean up his tyres and recover the situation whilst Heinemann would spend much of his time heavily defending his podium position from the Championship leading #85 Mercedes.

In something of a ‘calm’ race by recent DTM Trophy standards, Heinemann would finish to take his second podium finish of the season whilst Ortmann would finish P10.

For Sunday’s race, the cooler track conditions suited by Astons much better as the #1 car claimed a front row start in P2 whilst Ortmann would start from a season’s best in P7 however, poor starts again from both drivers saw that effort count for nothing as both dropped into the pack in P3 and P13 respectively.

This time it was the #1 cars turn to be shouldered out into the gravel which in turn dropped him further back to P6 with neither car seemingly having the race pace to recover. Despite some last lap passes, the #1 car would finish P5 and the #19 car in P13.

These results leave Heinemann way off the Championship leaders in P6 with less than half the points of the leader whilst Ortmann shows just three points from his four races since taking over the #19 car from Patrik Matthiesen after the Monza debacle.

The next round will be at the Red Bull Ring in two week’s time.

Photo credits – DTM Trophy / Teams