“Giti’s Angels” Team Wins First in Class at Final 2019 Nürburgring VLN Race
Throughout the year, a major story in German racing has been the introduction and success of Giti’s “Girls Only” VW racing team. Helmed by Team Chief Ellen Lehmann, the team was is the first all-female squad during Nürburgring’s long and storied history. In addition to the drivers, all of the technical and other crew are also female, with a determined personality that has drawn notoriety from around the world.
Throughout the nine-race high-profile VLN Endurance Championship series held at Nürburgring this year, the Giti’s Angels 300 WV Golf VII GTI TCR car has performed very competitively. Notably the team had an emotional story at the headline 24 Hours Nürburgring race in June, with its crew spending many hours overnight to repair their heavily damaged engine to finish the remainder of the race, drawing great accolades for their perseverance. However – despite coming very close – during the season they had not been able to win first place in their highly competitive SP3T class.
That all changed during a spectacular performance during the last VLN weekend. After a strong start during the qualifying rounds, the Sunday race started off a bit slow, but the Giti’s Angels team steadily advanced. Célia Martin took the cockpit after eight laps and advanced the car to second place in a tremendous performance. Carrie Schreiner then took over the cockpit for the last stint with lightning speed, building up pressure on the leading car. Second place was now safe, but the team wanted more.
Corinna Schäfer, Race Engineer described: “We saw on the GPS that Carrie could do another lap, if she crossed the finish line in front of the overall leader. That was pretty close. But we calculated that the fuel was enough and we also saw the leading car with some problems. That was our chance and we had to strike.” Schreiner pushed and implemented the instructions. She drove the day’s best time in the class and took over the lead after four hours of racing, finishing the team turnaround to take the SP3T class championship! They also placed an extremely impressive #36 out of 162 throughout all participating drivers and classes.
In addition to the Giti’s Angels incredible performance, Giti Tire’s Audi R8 LMS Ultra, Audi R8 GT4, and Golf VI GTI all showed terrific performance throughout the year during its Nürburgring competitions. In particular, Giti’s two Audi R8 vehicles showed extreme performance and strength both in their class and among the entire racing fields, including a superb #1/#2 finish in the very strong SP8 class at the 24 Hours Nürburgring, which included a 20th place finish of the overall of the top vehicles from around the world.
Altogether, 2019 was truly a season to remember for Giti in its German racing. Thorsten Willems, Teamchief of Giti Tire Motorsport by WS Racing described how the final VLN weekend was a great way to finish such a memorable season.
“The whole team did a great job over the weekend and everything went perfectly. The GitiCompete GTR1, which underlined our performance, made a big contribution to this success. A big ‘Thank You’ to Giti Tire and their European Development Center at Hannover, who did a great job.”
Thorsten Willems Teamchief of Giti Tire Motorsport by WS Racing
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Giti’s global motorsports current and recent activities include the renowned Nürburgring 24 Hours endurance race, official tire supplier to Super Truck racing championship in Australia, the Fun Cup racing series in the UK, newly announced tire supplier for the Formula 3 Asia Series, as well as collaborating with many other teams and racing series around the world.
The 2019 Giti Motorsports schedule can be viewed at http://www.gitiglobal.com/Motorsports/2019