“A weekend to forget,” were Simon Reicher’s words following this season’s halftime event of the ADAC TCR Germany series last weekend, August 3-5. Only a few weeks ago, the Nürburgring and Reicher’s Audi RS3 LMS were a perfect match. “The situation was a little bit different this weekend,” said the visibly frustrated 18-year-old.

Friday’s free practice sessions included a testing program that was to lay the foundation for Saturday’s qualification. But this weekend showed that the qualifying session seems to have its own laws. The young Austrian was out of luck – lying in second place during the qualification, the front-right drive shaft of his Audi broke. The qualifying rules: The twelve best drivers of the first session advance to a second session immediately thereafter. The lap times of the second session determine the starting grid for the first twelve drivers. It was still during the first session that Simon Reicher, who had driven an excellent first lap and now stood in second position, was suddenly handicapped by a broken drive shaft. As the qualification progressed and lap times improved, Reicher gradually dropped down position for position in the ranking. “My team did an amazing job and gave it a thousand percent to still bring out the car during the session. Twelve seconds before the end, I was still in twelfth position and could have made it into the second qualifier. But in the last second a competitor drove 48 hundredths faster and I fell back into thirteenth,” explained the YACO Racing driver, whose disappointment could not to be overlooked.

Simon Reicher therefore began the first race on Saturday from thirteenth position on the grid. After a clean start and some passes, the following happened: “Everything started superb. No contact and the car felt great. Then, I made a small mistake, locked up the breaks, and two competitors passed by me lying in eighth place.”

What happened during the second race on Sunday afternoon, is beyond mysterious for the eighth-grader of the Felbertal High School. “For Sunday’s race we were able to use my tires from the qualification because they only had three laps of wear. But strangely enough, there was no advantage to the fresher tires. The traction off the grid was not good and I had to fight hard the first few laps to even keep up. Despite having warmed up the tires, the performance in the corners was quite poor. Halfway through the race, the car finally started running well,” reports the Kirchberg native. The Audi driver then closed a large gap to his frontrunners. Unfortunately, the driver ahead blocked the track so heavily that Reicher saw no chance to progress any further through the field. He crossed the finish line in 19th position and dropped back into eleventh place in the overall standings.

Looking forward, the sympathetic youngster has one major wish: “So far this season – we just completed the fourth race weekend – we already replaced eight wheel bearings and three broken drive shafts. For the future, I wish for the necessary portion of luck and the highly praised Audi-quality to be on my side,” commented the bummed out Austrian, adding: “We work hard, are fast, but these things just don’t help when we’re tailing behind. We are missing out on the reward for the hard work, especially the team.”

In just a few days, the ADAC TCR Germany will host its fifth event in the supporting program of the ADAC GT Masters. From August 17 through 19, the engines will be roaring up at the Dutch circuit in Zandvoort. A track that Simon Reicher considers home terrain and where he hopes to find redemption.