Nurburgring Endurance Series racer Brett Lidsey secured a richly deserved maiden VT2 class podium during the penultimate round of the 2021 season in Germany on Saturday, 25th September – a star result for Brett and team-mates Moran Gott and Emir Asari.

Providing the perfect response for Northfleet’s Lidsey to a luckless VT2 debut a fortnight ago, when a stone pierced the intercooler on his No.487 BMW 330i during lap one of the race, this weekend’s contest was much more straightforward – although not entirely trouble-free.

Qualifying second fastest in VT2, thanks to a terrific lap from Gott, the London-based Israeli driver took the opening stint of the four-hour race and swiftly grabbed the lead for Sorg Rennsport before Lidsey took over the car for stint two.

Driving superbly, the Kent racer built a significant gap to put the team-mates in major contention for class victory, but he had to make his pit-stop earlier than scheduled due to a technical issue. Asari was next behind the wheel and Gott returned to the car for the run to the flag.

“We really needed that!”, said a delighted, and relieved, Lidsey, “It’s a great result for all of us, especially after the bad luck we had at the last round. Moran [Gott] did a fantastic job in qualifying, it was a mega lap, and the race was fairly straightforward. I did have a bit of bad luck in my stint with a technical issue, which meant we had to pit early, but we were still in contention for the win. 

“To come away with P2 is a great result and I want to say a big thank you to the guys at Sorg for giving us a very competitive car with the BMW 330i. It goes without saying as well, a massive thanks to my sponsors Lift Out, Dornack, GPL Projects Ltd and Certus Security. It’s been a very challenging year with all of the problems caused by the pandemic, this podium is what everyone deserves.”

Following a delay to proceedings on Saturday morning due to fog at the Nurburgring-Nordschleife, qualifying got underway 90 minutes later than scheduled and Gott delivered a tremendous lap of 9m22.020 seconds to put the No.487 car second fastest in VT2. 

Gott wasted no time at the beginning of the race in taking the class lead, putting together a brilliant opening lap of the 14-mile track. Although he did have some pressure to contend with throughout, Gott led every lap and when the first round of pit-stops started to be served he stayed on track.

Pitting a lap later, at the end of the seventh tour, to hand over the car to Lidsey – with around one hour and 10 minutes completed – the Briton climbed behind the wheel and when the order had settled he was around 14 seconds ahead of the No.481 car.

Driving impressively in, effectively, his first true VT2 class outing in the BMW 330i, Lidsey continued to maintain a healthy gap over his pursuers. Although losing time on lap 10, his lead reducing to 12 seconds, the next time around Lidsey had doubled his advantage to just under 25 seconds. 

At the halfway juncture, the end of hour two, the 30-year-old had further increased his notable lead to 32 seconds as he expertly made his way through traffic. Lidsey was set to stay out longer than his rivals before making the team’s second stop, but a technical problem required him to visit pitlane much sooner than intended – although with a lead of one minute and 20 seconds at that point.

Turkish driver Asari climbed into the car next and after everything had shaken out he was in second position, around 26 seconds behind the lead No.481 car of Philipp Stahlschmidt. Although slipping further back over the next few laps, Asari was able to keep well ahead of the No.505 car in third.

With around 45 minutes of the race remaining Asari pitted to hand the BMW back to Gott and when the order settled once more he was roughly 90 seconds adrift of the race lead. Although not able to reduce the gap to Stahlschmidt, Gott went on to take the chequered flag at the end of four hours a minute clear of third position – with a quickest race lap time just 0.1 seconds shy of the best in VT2.

The final race of the Nurburgring Endurance Series season, the 45th DMV Munsterlandpokal, will take place on Saturday, 9th October, at the Nurburgring-Nordschleife.