This was a weekend to remember for Alex Fontana making his seasonal debut in the 7th and 8th rounds of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS) Endurance. The Swiss driver came away from the historic Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit with two Pro-Am class podiums and an overall pole position.
Alex had his first taste of the circuit known worldwide as the “Green Hell” at the wheel of the Car Collection Motorsport team’s Porsche 911 GT3 R (992), returning for the second consecutive year after his experience with Audi in the NLS, which had ended with a podium finish. Although the car was very familiar to the Lugano-based driver, a track like the Nordschleife requires constant adjustments; the programme was tight, as two 4-hour races were staged over the weekend of 13-14 September – the ADAC ACAS Cup and ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen – each preceded by a morning qualifying session.
Artur Goroyan completed the Walluf team’s line-up in car number #44. The Armenian driver can boast extensive experience of the Ring and its 20 km plus laps, although most of it has been gained with front-wheel drive cars.
Saturday’s race was marked by unprecedented media coverage for this NLS season, generated by the presence of four-time Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen. Max was tackling his first official laps of the Nordschleife in a GT4 class car in order to obtain a licence to compete with GT3 machinery, a step regarding which the German federation (DMSB) is uncompromising and which Fontana himself has taken in the past.
Rain, another characteristic feature of the circuit nestled in the Eifel mountains, soon made an appearance. Saturday’s qualifying took place in wet conditions, allowing Fontana and Goroyan’s Porsche to start from third place on the grid, as well as pole position in the Pro-Am class. It also rained for twenty minutes during the race, an hour and a half before the chequered flag: the uneven downpour across the breadth of the German circuit took most of the crews on the track by surprise. Among them, Car Collection also lost ground, dropping from the fight for the overall podium to fifth place and second in the Pro-Am class, which they consolidated through to the end of the race.
Despite the track still being wet, Sunday morning was a dream come true for Alex Fontana. The Swiss driver took the top spot in qualifying for the eighth round of the season, stopping the clock at 8:50.741. Fontana managed to defend his lead in the race until he encountered wet patches on the track, forcing him to cut across the grass and relinquish the lead. This was a rather complex situation to deal with, as he was the first car in the pack to encounter the slippery track conditions.
As the circuit continued to dry out, allowing the drivers to lower their lap times, Fontana recorded the fastest lap in his category in 7:58.697, an improvement of 4 seconds over Saturday’s race, demonstrating the progress made in understanding and fine-tuning the car. While this pace was noteworthy, it did not change his final position – sixth overall and third in class – given the delay accumulated in the middle of the race.
A solid performance at the end of the weekend confirms the symbiosis between the Lugano driver and the Walluf team, as well as Fontana’s “special” feeling for wet conditions.
Alex Fontana
“We’re delighted to have achieved two podium finishes in our first NLS appearance of the season. I’d like to thank the whole team for their extraordinary work over a weekend that was not easy to deal with: it was my first time at the Ring with Porsche, but the team immediately put me at ease with the car. It’s incredible to drive at the Nordschleife, especially in the wet. You’re not going to face a track like this anywhere else in your career and I just hope I’ll be back there in the future.”