Sorg Rennsport driver Brett Lidsey produced his best performance thus far in the 2020 Nurburgring Endurance Series on Sunday, with an excellent fourth place finish in the Cup5 class during round three of the campaign.

Having earlier secured a season-best front row slot in qualifying at the Nurburgring-Nordschleife with the second fastest time, a tremendous performance in slippery conditions from Northfleet racer Lidsey, he challenged hard for the podium with team-mates Kevin Wolters and Ivan Berets.

Unusually for the Nurburgring Endurance Series, two races took place over the course of the weekend but round two on Saturday, 11th July, wasn’t as fruitful. Starting the race eighth in the Cup5 class, the trio took the No.694 Gerri Limonade liveried BMW M240i to an 11th place result.

“I’m really happy with fourth position in only my third race in the series”, said Lidsey, who is backed by Liftout and Dornack, “Obviously a podium was what we had set our sights on, but the whole team did a fantastic job. It was tough up at the front, but we were competitive which is the main thing and gives us a lot to build on for the next round.”

The Kent 28-year-old was delighted with the progress he made between practice and qualifying for the first race, lowering his personal best lap time around the 24-kilometre track by no less than six seconds. Ultimately, the BMW took eighth on the grid in class for Saturday’s four-hour encounter.

Berets took the opening stint and although he was shuffled back to 12th position, the three team-mates battled hard to recover. Lidsey took the second stint after the first round of driver changes and put together an excellent performance, before Wolters got behind the wheel. In the end, 11th place in class was the best the squad could muster.

Lidsey really came to the fore in Sunday’s round three qualifying, a session which proved very challenging with oil deposited on the track in several places. Driving to the conditions impressively, the British racer secured the second fastest lap in Cup5 to brilliantly set-up a podium challenge.

Taking the first stint of the race, everything went to plan early on. While running in third though, contact from a rival enabled two cars from the Cup5 class to stream past. The knock Lidsey’s BMW sustained led to significant oversteer, which he had to work around for the remainder of his stint.

Berets took over at the pit-stop and ran in seventh place initially, before moving back into the podium placings as the race order shook out. Wolters climbed behind the wheel for the last hour and a half, running in sixth to begin with before moving back through into second before the final stop for fuel. Emerging from the pits in fourth, he took the flag just over a minute shy of the podium.

“I’m really pleased with my qualifying performance for the second race, the conditions were really tricky with lots of oil around the track so to be second fastest was great”, Lidsey reflected, “I started the race and was doing OK until we had some contact, two cars got by and I had to manage a lot of oversteer around left handers for the rest of the stint.

“Overall, race two was really strong for us and we’ve shown again we’ve got the competitiveness and pace to challenge for the podium. It’s a shame Saturday wasn’t as good, but we’ve ended the second weekend of the season on a high and know what we’re capable of. I just want to say a big thank you to my sponsors, the guys at Sorg Rennsport and my team-mates for a great weekend.”