Frédéric Vervisch leaps forward after strong outing in Germany

Frédéric Vervisch scored just one point less than Esteban Guerrieri over the Nürburgring weekend, and has leapt from 11th to fifth in the championship standings as a result.

The Belgian finished in fifth place in Race 1 on Friday, and followed this up with two second place finishes in Race 2 and 3 on Saturday morning, making a strong start to leap to third from seventh on the grid in the final race.

Vervisch was involved in the close battle for the podium spot yesterday between Münnich Motorsport Honda driver Néstor Girolami, and the Sébastien Loeb Racing Volkswagen of Rob Huff, where he ended up fifth overall, but on Saturday, Vervisch finished comfortably in second in the first race of the day, while keeping the SLR Volkswagen of Nordschleife expert Benjamin Leuchter honest in the final race, in a weekend where Vervisch is on double duty, racing in the Nürburgring 24 Hours in an Audi R8 LMS.

“Free practice didn’t start well,” said Vervisch. “We lacked speed so I didn’t have high hopes for the races. But in the tricky conditions in qualifying we had luck on our side and performed well when it was necessary. And from there two times I had a good start and three times I could avoid incidents, so I’m very happy with this weekend. The Comtoyou guys did an amazing job to repair the car from the big hit, so this is really for them.

In terms of the championship, where Vervisch has now emerged as the best-placed Audi Sport driver, Vervisch said:

“We were P11 before the weekend, so it’s good. Everything is very tight behind the leader Esteban. For the rest of the year it will very hard. We need a victory where we can dominate. Here I had a feeling we had some luck in qualifying and then we had some good track position, but our speed is not where it has to be, so I hope for some improvement for the rest of the season, otherwise it is going to be difficult to catch up.”