Motorsport News
German Endurance Championship 2008 – Season Preview
By source: Volvo Team PSR
Apr 11, 2008, 19:41

Volvo Team PSR faces the stiffest possible opposition within the German Endurance Championship. The Adenau-based team enters it’s only Volvo S60 in the SP3 class. Ulli Andree, Remo Lips and André Lips now race in that very catergory which fields more than 20 cars and is thus the strongest of all classes withing Europe’s most popular endurance series.

It’s not an easy change but one which has been well-planned. To turn the Volvo S60 that has been so successful in the SP4 class into a potential front-running outfit in the two-litre category, Volvo Team PSR relies on the knowledge of an engine tuner with a vast history in NASCAR racing in the USA.

The English spin-off of Roush Racing, based in Brentwood in Essex, has developed a new four cylindre engine with a capacity of two litres. The new powerplant succeeds the bullet-proof five-cylindre unit which had powered the Volvo S60 ever since it’s inaugural race on the Nuerburgring Nordschleife. „The engine is based on the roadgoing version as used in the Volvo S40 2.0 and has it’s origins in the Ford group,“ recalls PSR team principal Danny Berk. „Roush is based on Mountune in the U.K. Mountune has been a long-serving partner of Ford as such knows a great deal about the two-litre engines.“ A Roush engineer will be on-site at the first few races on the Nordschleife to make sure the transition of PSR runs smoothly. „As far as power and torque are concerned, we’ve got very good figures – figures that are still capable of withstanding the test of a 24-hour race“, says Berk.

His mechanics have built the Volvo S60 from scratch once again. In so doing, they shaved off another 50 kilograms of weight. „That’s as good as it’s going to get,“ knows Berk. „We don’t have a chance to bring the car right down to the minimum weight of 985 kilograms.“

This year, PSR will only use chassis V03; sister car V04 won’t be racing anymore but will much rather be on display in a famous Swiss motorsports museum and hall of fame.

Berk says, the reason for changing the class is „to enable our so very successful car a nice farewell. We won’t race the Volvo S60 any more in 2009. So far, it has notched up 27 victories. The SP3 category is the very class in which it will now face the most possible opponents and where competition will be unbelievably fierce. It’s tbest possible hunting ground for the Volvo to reap it’s final rewards. If we manage to break into the top 5 on a regular basis that would be a major achievement for us. Unlike other cars in that class, which are sold as racing stock cars from the various manufacturers, every racing part for the Volvo S60 has had to be developed and manufactured individually.“

Ulli Andree, runner-up in the 2004 championship, shares Berk’s opinion. „After we’ve changed the class, gone are the times in which we’ve been a safe bet for fighting for victories,“ says the Cologne-based racing driver. „We will face a number of tough opponents, not least a WTCC BMW 320 as run in th e FIA World Touring Car Championship and a number of different, very interesting and fast cars. We will have to give our best shot to stay within reach of the leading cars. But that will make the season ever so challenging and even more rewarding than the previous years.“

In addition to the Volvo project, team PSR continues it’s work on the brand new Chevrolet Corvette. Swiss ace Fredy Lienhard, jr, who partnered Andree in the Volvo last season, will drive the American muscle car in this summer’s 24-hour race on the Nuerburgring Nordschleife. His partner will be Thomas Koll, also a former Volvo regular. PSR will use the races leading up to the 24 hours as test and development runs for the Corvette.

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