The Golden Era Touring Car races offered exciting racing all the way to the last corner.

For the Schnitzer Classic Team, Yannik Trautwein and Ralph Bahr each started with a BMW E36 320i Super Touring Car.

In qualifying, Yannik secured a place in the front row of the grid with the 2-liter race car. After a strong 11th place in free practice, Ralph Bahr was unfortunately unable to set a time in qualifying due to a clutch defect on his super touring car. This was unfortunate as there were more cars in qualifying than the number of cars allowed for the race. Without a timed lap, Ralph unfortunately was not allowed to start in race 1.

As expected, the first race became a battle between Yannik in the BMW E36 STW and pole setter Michael Kammermann (CH) in the almost 200 hp more powerful BMW 3.0 CSL. Yannik tried to compensate the power deficit with the handling advantage of the super touring car as best as possible, but had to admit defeat to the strong Swiss in the end.

Race 2 promised to be even more exciting when Paul Mensley (GB) in the 580hp Ford RS500 Cosworth joined the fight for victory on lap 4. Yannik and Paul delivered a lap-long duel behind Kammermann. On the last lap the Ford saw its chance to overtake Kammermann on the approach to the Veedol chicane, but went wide. Yannik seized the opportunity ice-cold, overtaking the Ford before the last corner and securing 2nd place and another class win in a photo finish. Ralph Bahr was in 51st place in the grid for race 2. With the green start light, he knew only one way in his super touring car – to the front. In the 25-minute race, Ralph overtook no less than 35 cars and brought the STW home in a very strong 16th place overall.

Picture: Belgianmotorsport