Motorsport News
Tough Race Ends with Third Place
By source: PSR Automotive / Volvo Cars Germany
Oct 28, 2007, 18:44

The last round of the German Endurance Championship turned into a hectic affair for Volvo Team PSR. Ulli Andree and Fredy Lienhard, jr. secured third place despite a number of additional pit stops, while siblings Remo and André Lips fell victim to an undeserving retirement while fighting for a podium position.

It was hard work for the mechanics. Electrics, tyres, gearbox – most of the main areas for the Volvo S60 had to be looked at during the Muensterlandpokal, the last round of the German Endurance Championship on the Nuerburgring.

Fredy Lienhard, jr. tried to qualify one car but abandoned his attempt as early as lap 2. „I noticed a misfire when driving under full throttle,“ said the Swissman, „and decided to come in for a check-up.“ But the mechanics could not spot the cause in the few minutes of qualifying and sent Ulli Andree out to resume the session.

Andree qualified the stuttering car on pole but didn’t start the race as scheduled. „The misfire got worse during the warm-up lap, even though we had changed the alternator before the start,“ recalled Andree. „So I came in at the end of the formation lap. The team changed the ignition coils, the potentiometer and the fuel pump; I lost five laps.“

While Andree chased the rest of the field from behind, the sister car of Remo and André Lips reeled off faster and faster lap times. The Zuerich-based siblings had only managed to qualify fourth but got better and better into the swing of things as the race progressed, fighting themselves up to third position. „It was pretty cold up in the Eifel mountains,“ said Lips. „We needed time to get the heat into the rear tyres. As long as they were too cold, the rear end of the Volvo was rather nervous. As we had not driven the full season, we couldn’t really cope with the nervous rear but rather had to wait for the tyres to really kick in until we could make full use of the car’s potential.“

Lips/Lips had their sights already set on place 2 when a gearbox failure sidelined them. Lips ran over some debris on the track, which ripped off a gearbox oil line. The oil sapped onto the track, causing the gearbox to seize immediately. „A shame,“ sighed Lips. „Our times were getting better lap by lap. In the end, we would have been able to finish right with our sister car.“

Andree and Lienhard, meanwhile, where chasing the pack, even though they were limited in using the throttle. „Time was running out to trace down the origin of the misfire,“ explained team principal Danny Berk. „As it only occured at full throttle, we assumed there must have been something wrong with the butterfly actuation. So we took pedal travel back to 85 per cent to make sure the misfire would be ruled out.“ Andree reported: „The misfire was gone. But we could onl y drive full throttle, the car wouldn’t accept anything else. It was almost like a digital throttlte control – either full on or nothing. This made it very difficult to drive in any non-flat out sections.“

but soon faced another setback. After a tyre failure at the right front, the alarm bell chimed. „We were using a brand new specification of tyres. They were vastly quick but we hadn’t found a proper way to set the car up in order to manage the tyres in a way that they would last one complete stint,“ said Berk. „Thus, we had to call the car in for a number of additional tyre stops.“

In spite having had to stop four times, Andree/Lienhard still managed to secure third place in the last race of the season.“


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