Oscar Tunjo (27/COL, van omen racing by DataLab) clocked a lap time of 1:31.335 to emerge victorious from a thrilling battle for the front spot on the grid in race five of this season’s Prototype Cup Germany. His fiercest rival, Markus Pommer (32/Untereisesheim, Racing Experience), took second place, a mere 0.079 seconds behind the pole-sitter. Third place went to Nico Göhler (20/Grasleben, BWT Mücke Motorsport), who backed up the good form shown in the free practice sessions. Laurents Hörr (25/Gerlingen, Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport) and Max van der Snel (19/NLD, More Motorsport by Reiter) followed him in fourth and fifth. Race one of the weekend in Zandvoort on the Dutch coast gets underway at 17:20 on Saturday.
“I hardly did any driving in yesterday’s free practices, so I am very happy with first place,” said Tunjo. “My team has given me a great car and we were able to get the maximum out of it. It is also important for us to have beaten Markus Pommer, as he and his team-mate Gary Hauser (31/LUX) are sure to provide strong opposition in the battle at the front of the race.” Pommer, for his part, could live with second place: “I wanted to attack from the start, as qualifying was reduced to just twelve minutes following a crash in the race before us. And my plan worked, to a certain degree. However, I did have two issues: my display showed me the wrong lap times, which was irritating, and then I made a slight mistake on the final lap. Given how close we were to Oscar, that is a bit frustrating. However, anything is possible in the race from second place on the grid.”
While Tunjo and Pommer are regulars at the front of the Prototype Cup Germany field, Nico Göhler forced his way into the top three in qualifying for the first time. “It is a super result for us, even though I could have been even faster if I had had a completely clear lap,” he said. “I deliberately left a gap to the man in front of me, in order to have a clear track. Unfortunately, I still managed to catch him in the end.” Göhler set his fastest time at the end of the session, having actually been outside the top ten at times prior to that. “Even as the time on the clock was ticking down, I was not nervous. My good results in the free practice sessions had given me the confidence that I could get myself further up the standings on my last attempt.”
Behind Laurents Hörr, the best of the Dutch contingent Max van der Snel and debutant Leonard Hoogenboom (23/NDL, DKR Engineering), Maximilian Hackländer (33/Rüthen, Konrad Motorsport) also impressed in seventh place. “I am happy with seventh, we are closer to the front than at the previous race weekends. When you consider that we did not have the full hour of practice yesterday, due to the red flag in the second session, we have done a very efficient job,” said Hackländer, who likes the challenging circuit in the North Sea dunes. “It is fast and undulating. Driving here is great fun.”
