Flawless debut for Falken driver Imperatori

ERJ staff report (TP)

Nürburgring, Germany – The Falken Motorsports team celebrated a successful premiere, bagging a place on the winners' rostrum at the conclusion of the second VLN race on 12 April.

The newest member of the team, Alexandre Imperatori, delivered a “superb” performance in the challenging race in tandem with Martin Ragginger.

The 2nd VLN (Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring - Association of Nürburgring Endurance Cup Organisers) race started at 12 noon in brilliant sunshine. Falken veteran Ragginger took the first stint in the familiar turquoise and blue Porsche, starting from the sixth slot on the grid. Despite an overall fast-paced field and numerous accidents, the Porsche GT3 R worked its way steadily forward to third place, lap by lap. But after only 45 minutes this triumphant progress ended prematurely when the race was interrupted because of car parts littering the track and a defective crash barrier.

Clearing and repairing the track would take three hours before the race could restart at around 4 pm with two introductory laps. After clocking up an assured performance at good speeds, Ragginger handed the wheel to his new team colleague – and Imperatori promptly demonstrated both his “tenacity and his outstanding fitness”. With consistently good lap times, he fought his way back to third place and retained this competitive advantage till the end of the race.

"After unfortunate accidents in the last two races, we've finally been able to show off the potential in our team – and, of course, in our engineering. We're famous for delivering speed in wet conditions, but today we were able to prove that our tires also promise top times on dry asphalt," said Falken's team manager, Sven Schnabl.

The Falken Team will once again hit the track at the Green Hell in the 3rd VLN Race on 25-26 April.

The team is part of Japanese firm Falken Tire, a Sumitomo Rubber Industries brand, launched in 1983.

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Press release from Falken