Nürburgring Endurance Championship

Engine Failure ends Season for No. 85 Cayman Team

by Fischer Motorsport PR

November 1, 2020 07:30 PM CET 636 Views

An at times very difficult 2020 iRacing NEC season, that originally started out great, came to a conclusion on Sunday for the No. 85 Porsche Cayman GT4 team and drivers Pascal Theis and Julian Bell. An engine failure lead to the team’s fourth DNF in the last six races.

The team had high hopes entering the season finale, holding fourth position in the official championship standings of the GT4 class, with a small chance to move up to third.

Things got off to a rocky start as Theis struggled to find pace in Qualifying. As time expired, the Fischer Motorsport No. 85 Porsche Cayman GT4 was listed in P8, with a lap of 8:38.233, eight seconds off pace from pole position.

As the field took to the starting grid, Theis lost dropped to ninth position, but already on lap three the Frankfurt, Germany driver made up four positions as other competitors found trouble.

Everything started to look more positive for the team now and on lap 7 the 26-year old posted the team’s fastest lap of the race.

Three laps later the team completed its first pit stop of the day and driver swap as Toronto, Canada native Julian Bell jumped in the car to take over from Theis for the middle stint of the race.

After exiting the pits, Bell missed his braking point and went into the gravel but managed to return to the track safely without damaging the car. However, just five corners later the 35-year old lost control and spun the car out.

It didn’t get better for Bell for long and six laps later he crashed into the barrier at the track section of Metzgesfeld, damaging the front of the car. The damage lead to an engine failure on the long straight of Döttering Höhe on the lap after the incident, forcing the team to retire the car.

It was the No. 85 Porsche Cayman team’s fourth DNF in the last six races following a string of three podium finishes to start off the season in March through April.

“It definitely is a very disappointing way for us to end the year. After those first three races, we just never got back in that groove to put good races together again, consistently. It was really tough at times. But I’m proud we still finished P5 in the championship, despite all of that.”, Pascal Theis said to reporters after the race.

Julian Bell did not have many words after the race, but just said: “It was just a terrible day. That’s totally on me, though I wasn’t having a great day for focusing.”

The No. 85 Porsche Cayman GT4 team finishes the season with four podium finishes, five top-5 and a total of 233 laps equaling 3,340 kilometers (2.087 miles).