BMW had only one shot for the overall and SP9 wins at the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, which is a tremendous gap compared to other manufacturers that had at least two cars, even if they weren’t in the same team, but the Nordschleife doesn’t forgive mistakes or lapses of judgement, and this punished the favorite No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R in more ways than one, gifting the victory to the No. 98 ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Augusto Farfus, Raffaele Marciello, Kelvin van der Linde and Jesse Krohn.
The initial moments of the race had the No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche asserting dominance, but once the first hour was gone and the first pit cycle came, different strategies worked in favor of the No. 45 Kondo Ferrari, with David Perel leading the No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes of Adam Christodoulou, though the No. 34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin was closer to Christodoulou than the No. 17 was to Perel.
With 90 minutes of racing, a red flag was brought due to an uncommon reason, as the garages in the pit lane had a power outage, which took an hour and a half to be restablished, although the restart took another 90 minutes, and it was done in its full procedure, like if it was from zero, with the three starting groups totally separated. The No. 911 restablished its lead, but with the No. 33 Falken Porsche in second and the No. 14 GetSpeed Mercedes in third.
With the pit strategies still separated, the No. 45 retook the lead on hour 5, but once it pits, the No. 911 takes the top spot again, but a puncture threw the No. 45 out of sync. The slow zones and Code 60s were pretty much commonplace at this point, but a No. 94 Sainte Royale Porsche stopped in a blind spot of the first chicane was hit exacty by the second placed No. 33 Falken Porsche, with the frontal impact lifting the bonnet and destroying the front end.
With the gaps eventuially increasing at night, the No. 14 and No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes found their places in second and third, though the No. 98 ROWE BMW was able to find a place with the fronturunners when the pit cycle turned to their side, but with nine hours of racing, the No. 17 was penalized for pit time infringement and the No. 14 had a terminal driveshaft failure.
During the rest of the night time, the No. 911 kept the lead without being caught inside the pit cycle swaps, with the No. 98 being the immediate threat to the Porsche, although it never converted it in a real challenge during the dark hours. Behind them, the No. 34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin was conserving the third place until the sunrise, but a punctue halted the progress.
The surprise came during the morning, as the No. 98 was shaving seconds of gap from the 2 minutes it had behind the No. 911, so much that on hour 18, Raffaele Marciello had just 12 seconds to Kevin Estre, all with a combination of pure pace and scattered Code 60 periods. It took 20 minutes to crush the rest of the gap, and in the heat of the battle, Estre jumped on the inside of the No. 179 Dörr Aston Martin at Wehrseifen, the No. 911 hits the high kerb and bounces in the No. 179’s direction, rolling it over in the process.
Obviously, Estre’s maneuver didn’t go withtout punishment, so he had an extra minute and 40 seconds to serve in the pits, which was converted in post-race time as he didn’t serve the penalty in the pits, and Manthey Racing kept working in the background to have the penalty rescinded, which would help the No. 911 while it was less than 10 seconds ahead of the No. 98, as any outcome would be possible.
The No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche kept the lead on track while the clock was running down and the decision wasn’t confirmed, and it crossed the finish line in first, but with the outstanding penalty being applied at the finish, the No. 98 ROWE BMW became the effective winner of the race.
ADAC-RAVENOL Nürburgring 24 Hours - Race results
The No. 65 HRT Ford was the undisputed winner of the SP9 Pro-Am class, while the overall top 15 also had the No. 918 Mühlner Porsche winning the Cup2 class and the No. 644 Max Kruse Porsche winning the AT2 class. The No. 59 Dörr McLaren Artura Trophy won the SP8T with considerable margin over the No. 150 BILSTEIN BMW that had Jimmy Broadbent, Steve ‘Super GT’ Brown and Assetto Corsa EVO poster boy Misha Charoudin alongside N24 winner Manuel Metzger. As the No. 59 car is an one-make series car, the No. 150 was also the best GT4 spec car overall.
The No. 830 Hyundai won the TCR class, and just behind it, the No. 19 Max Kruse Volkswagen won the AT3 class, having onboard the seven time World RX champion Johan Kristoffersson. The overall top 30 would still have the Cup3 class winner, the No. 962 W&S Porsche.
Just outside the overall top 30, the No. 67 AV Black Falcon BMW won the SP10 class, with the SP7 winner, the No. 97 Saugmotoren Porsche, and the No. 310 FK Performance BMW that won in SP3T, coming next. The BMW M240i class was won by the No. 650 Adrenalin entry while the No. 500 Adrenalin BMW came just behind to win the VT2 Hecka class. The No. 410 ren2drive Porsche won the V6 class, and the No. 109 ROOKIE Racing Toyota, which had former Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda with his son Daisuke alongside Super GT aces Hiroaki Ishiura and Kazuya Oshima, won a two car affair for SP2T honors.
The V5 class was won by the No. 444 Adrenalin Porsche, with the No. 69 HY Racing Andalucia Porsche winning the SP4T class just into the overall top 60. The No. 700 rent2drive entry has won the BMW 325i class, and the No. 471 Auto Thomas by Jung CUPRA won the VT2 Front class. The competitors in the SP3 and SP-PRO classes, the No. 277 RAVENOL BMW and the No. 347 Toyo Tires Porsche, either didn’t make to the finish or didn’t even start the race.
Between the IGTC entries, while the No. 98 was the overall and SP9 Pro winner, the No. 55 Hankook Porsche was the SP9 Pro-Am winner as the No. 65 HRT Ford wasn’t listed as an IGTC entry.
After a 24 hour race we will just have another one, as the 24 Hours of Spa will be held on 28 and 29 June.
PHOTOS: BMW Motorsport, Gruppe C Photography, Max Kruse Racing, Toyota Gazoo Racing
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