Season’s best for Colin at Norisring
The Norisring Speed Weekend is one of the highlights of the German motorsport calendar. Colin Bönighausen achieved his best result of the season so far, coming 7th on the popular street circuit.
After setting the fastest lap time in Zandvoort, Colin Bönighausen (Proton Huber Competition) maintained his upward trend at Dutzendteich in Nuremberg. His seventh-place finish on Sunday was particularly impressive: he was the second-best German among the 30 starters and also closed the gap on his Proton Huber Competition teammates De Haan and Klein within the Supercup elite – an outstanding achievement for Colin!
After an absence of several years, the Porsche Sixt Carrera Cup Germany returned to the Norisring for races 7 and 8 of the season. With a track length of just 2.3 kilometres and a lap time of just over 50 seconds, the Norisring is the shortest track on the Porsche Sixt Carrera Cup Germany calendar. This unusual course seems to suit ‚CJB‘: “The Norisring is special for everyone, and there were over 100,000 spectators again – that motivates you even more, of course.”
The racing driver from Lower Saxony had performed better in qualifying this weekend, achieving starting positions of 16 and 7, and he was able to build on this in the races. He demonstrated strength in both offence and defence in the battle groups, with his turquoise Colin 911 repeatedly standing out with overtaking manoeuvres. The 20-year-old managed to avoid accidents and collisions on the walled track. “At the beginning of the weekend, I was still finding it difficult after not having been in the car for a month. From the second qualifying session onwards, however, I felt better and pushed myself to the limit when braking.” Without ABS, this requires a delicate touch. In the first race, Colin moved up from 16th to 10th place: “The pace was as good as that of the drivers at the front.” Starting from seventh place in the second race, he initially dropped back two places at the start, but then fought his way back up to seventh place. “The track conditions had changed slightly and I couldn’t get the car to rotate properly to get through the corners as well as possible.” Nevertheless, Colin was satisfied with his performance on Sunday: “I’ve had this level of performance all year, but it hasn’t resulted in good positions – now you can finally see it.”
The one-make cup, which features the 500 hp Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, is now taking a short summer break. The fifth round is scheduled to take place at the Nürburgring from 8–10 August. Colin is using this time to move into his first apartment.
