Double Bullfight at Raeder
- Raeder Motorsport builds second Gallardo for VLN
- Owner Heinz Schmersal will drive the whole season 2008
- OSRAM-Gallardo continues to run with the same team
January 08, Paderborn
It took one and a half years but Raeder Motorsport finally had its breakthrough with the Lamborghini Gallardo: a podium finish in the second last VLN race in 2007 and a near-miss of the pole position in the final race by just one tenth of a second. And for the 2008 season, the committed racing team around Martin and Nicki Raeder are going to remodel a second Gallardo into a competitive racing car. The man behind it, Heinz Schmersal from Wuppertal/Germany, however has no winning ambitions right now:
"I simply want to have an attractive racing car which I can drive to a top ten placement in the overall classification despite the enormous increase in the competitive level of the VLN. Looking at the potential of the Raeder-Gallardo, that should be possible for an ambitious amateur such as me after an appropriate settling-in period."
Stephan Rösler will be Heinz Schmersal’s partner in four VLN races as well as in the 24-hour race. Rösler became known to the scene worldwide as the pilot of the first racing Gallardo.
"We were very proud of that - however, we’ve reached the limits of the almost serial-production car. That’s why I’m now switching to the Raeder car. It’s a great challenge and I, like Heinz, believe that we can achieve a top-ten finish."
Building on the successes of the previous year and adding more cups to the one already won is the aim of the OSRAM-Gallardo crew, Hermann Tilke, Dirk Adorf and Peter Oberndorfer.
"I’m really fond of this once-in-a-lifetime project and after the start, which was admittedly not easy, we’ve proven that we’ve had reason to believe in the Gallardo and Raeder,"
said Hermann Tilke, initiator of the whole enterprise. This car, too, will be on the race track throughout the entire season. Highlight for the Italian with the characteristic light bulb on the roof will be the 2008 24-hour race.
“We’ve already shown there in 2007 that we have to be reckoned with and, as in the VLN, the Tilke-Gallardo will drive more on the aggressive side whereas the Schmer-sal crew will try to move up the rankings by clocking constant times. In any case it is fantastic to have two Lamborghinis on the track,"
so Nicki Raeder. And his brother Martin adds:
"We’ll rebuild and enhance the OSRAM car over the winter, and on top we’ll remodel and improve the aerodynamics and make it easier to maintain. Techni-cally the new car will be 100% identical to the first one. For both cars we trust in our long-standing partners, OSRAM, Dunlop, Keiper, HEGGEMANN, KW, Recaro, Waldmann, IMSA, DP-Motorsport and MOV’IT."
The signs are promising that this year’s VLN will attract even more than the 292,000 spectators seen in the 2007 season: the 2008 competitors’ field will be more alluring than ever before and the two Raeder-Lamborghinis will certainly be a lot more than just interesting colour spots.
Lambo-Racing GmbH
Tel.: +49-(0)9533-924-777
