Bitter retirement for Christopher Mies and tim Zimmermann: Initial suspicion of steering wheel confirmed – Powercycle only brought brief improvement
Everything pointed to Tim Zimmermann making good on his announcement and claiming his first podium result alongside newly minted father Christopher Mies at Land-Motorsport. But then everything went wrong in the second stint of Sunday’s race. First a powercycle, then retirement.
Land-Motorsport had very quickly pinpointed the steering wheel as the main suspect. “It’s not the first time there have been problems with the steering wheels. It’s sad when you know that you’re giving away a third place in the race and important championship points as a result. It’s just an unnecessary issue,” team boss Christian Land told ‘Nitro’ on Sunday.
In the meantime, the team has confirmed that the problem was an electronic defect in the steering wheel that prevented the team from shifting up and down.
“Miesi drove a super first stint,” Land continued. “Tim got in the car and we had a relatively good pit stop. Two cars got a penalty. We would have been third on an adjusted basis and had a chance to finish second. “
On the first problem, when Zimmermann did a reset, he couldn’t get a gear in. “So he was more or less coasting and couldn’t shift up or down. Then he did a power cycle, so he ran the car back up once without power.”
“Then it worked again for a short time, but then the error occurred more and more often and in the end nothing worked anymore. Unfortunately, we had to bring the car in. “
Zimmermann adds: “The pace of the car was very good and the chance for a podium was there. That would have been nice especially after the difficult start to the weekend. It’s always a shame to have to park the car in such a promising position.” Zimmermann and Mies took eighth place on Saturday, the only top-10 result for Land this weekend.
Jusuf Owega, who had arrived at the Nürburgring as the leader of the standings, was also hit hard. Only four points from the first race together with Ricardo Feller were not enough – he dropped back to sixth position. The gap to second place is only 19 points, but right at the front Raffaele Marciello has pulled away by 35 points.
Land promises to attack again at the Lausitzring.
