VLN: Rodney Forbes Nurburgring summary

Forbes records seventh consecutive podium in European VLN Series.

Australia's Rodney Forbes has maintained his stellar record in the European VLN Series driving a Porsche 997 Cupcar to third place in the Cup 3 class last weekend at round seven of the challenging endurance championship at Nurburgring in Germany.

With the event being Forbes' seventh consecutive podium finish last weekend's result now sees him currently in 15th place overall in the VLN Driver Championship standings -- quite a remarkable achievement. With each round of the VLN championship hosting an average grid of 180 cars and each car represented by at least two drivers there are now 774 drivers contesting the series.

The Seaforth (NSW) resident has finished in the top three in his class in each of the seven races that he has contested. He has achieved one first, three seconds and three thirds and has finished in the top ten outright in five out of the seven rounds.

"Despite the car being quite fast, we qualified sixth in class putting us 21st on the grid," said Forbes. "With 191 cars on the track this round, it was difficult to get a clean lap during qualifying as all it takes is an accident or a slow car somewhere on the 26km track to ruin the whole qualifying run."

Forbes had the honour of starting the gruelling four hour race. The Australian took the car to 14th outright and fifth in class before handing driving duties over to co-driver, David Horn.

Horn was able to take full advantage of the ground made up by Forbes before the Australian got back in the car and drove the final one hour stint to cross the finish line eighth outright and third in the class.

"Overall it was a great race, I did the fastest time I have ever done around the track and my lap times are now consistently 10 seconds quicker than when I started the series," Forbes concluded.

Forbes will now have a break between races before returning to Nurburgring to test with Team Weiland Racing again during the week prior to the eighth round of the series on October 3 - 4, 2009.

-credit: rf