It was supposed to be one of the best editions of the 24 Hours of Nürburgring as the race now counts for the Intercontinental GT Challenge, and due to the all star lineups that the customer teams of the top manufacturers in GT racing would bring, but the fog didn’t let the fun go past seven hours, which crowned the No. 16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Frank Stippler, Christopher Mies, Dennis Marschall and Ricardo Feller as the winners.
Right at the start, the No. 72 RMG BMW bailed out to the pits to change to wet weather tires as the highest points of the track up to the Karusell were registering rain enough to make the surface really slippery, so the No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche inherited the lead while trying to run away from the No. 99 ROWE BMW. Despite having 25 km, the full Nürburgring 24h track also hosts all sorts of classes with hugely varying degrees of speed and pace, so the traffic appeared at the first 30 minutes of racing, although it didn’t change any of the top positions during the first hour, with the track condition catching the unaware drivers off guard.
First pit window done and after a drying track, the effect of the rain tires was going away while strategies were also starting to split, meaning the No. 99 was back to the lead, and everything was running fine for it until near the fourth hour, when the BMW M4 GT3 was sent to the barriers at Fuchsröhre while trying to negotiate the way through traffic, with the No. 507 Giti Tire BMW and the No. 420 Four Motors Porsche having similar outcomes.
While the different pit strategies would turn the top-5 into a merry-go-round, but the No. 16 Scherer PHX Audi and the No. 72 RMG BMW were always topping the table once the cycle was completed, with the No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche in a distant third and the No. 4 BILSTEIN Mercedes hot in pursuit. With rain coming and going and eventually the fog made its presence known, and the visibility that was already poor at 11 P.M. made it almost impossible to keep things safe, with the red flag being called as helicopters and marshal posts had no immediate visibility.
The problem then started at 7 A.M. local time, which was the first time when the Race Control would take a decision about the remainder of the race, which was moved then 8 A.M. and so on until 1:30 P.M., when the Safety Car and the competitors decided to hit the track again to have five formation laps to assess the situation, which wasn’t improving as the GP-Strecke, the higher parts after the Flugplatz and the Dottinger Höhe were still covered in thick fog.
Some teams made their final pit stops in hopes that the race would be resumed, so they would focus on the track, but with the fog not going away at nearly 3 P.M. local time, the results were declared with the No. 16 Scherer PHX Audi in front, while the No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche in second and the No. 72 RMG BMW completing the podium.
After the race, ROWE Racing lodged a protest about the race results citing that the conclusion of the race wasn’t handled ideally, so for the time being, results remain provisional until further notice.
ADAC RAVENOL Nürburgring 24h Rennen - Race results
The Cup2 class was won by the No. 103 Black Falcon Porsche Cup right in the overall top-20, with the SP11 class being won by the No. 55 Dörr KTM, having behind it the Cup 3 winning No. 959 SRS Sorg Porsche and the SP10 winner, the No. 188 FK Performance BMW. The BMW dominated SP8T class saw the No. 145 Cerny Motorsport entry take the honors with the No. 150 BILSTEIN Black Falcon BMW in a close second.
Within the overall top-50, the No. 831 Hyundai won the TCR class with the AT3 winning No. 50 Max Kruse Racing Volkswagen right behind it, and a whisker away from the 50 best was the No. 88 STI Subaru which won the SP4T. The No. 650 Adrenalin entry was the best BMW M240i, while the No. 80 Plusline Porsche was the best SP7 class car and the No. 416 Köppen Porsche won the V6 class.
SCG might have been far outside the battle with the fully fledged GT3s despite the pace shown in the Qualifying and Practice sessions, but the No. 706 SCG004C still conquered the SP-X class, with the No. 504 SRS Sorg BMW conquering the VT2 Hecka class and the No. 495 Auto Thomas by Jung Cupra taking VT2 Front class honors. The No. 444 Adrenalin Porsche was the best V5 class car, and almost 10 places below the No. 711 EiFelkind BMW won the V4 class. The last class winners into the top-100 overall were the No. 207 Hofor BMW in SP6 and the No. 776 Goroyan Volkswagen in SP3T, seven positions ahead of the illustrous No. 318 Ollis Garage Dacia.
The No. 152 Oepen Motors BMW was the first class winner outside the overall top 100 as the sole SP4 entry, which was the same case for the No. 275 RAVENOL MDM BMW which ran solo in SP3.
As for the IGTC points scoring entries, the No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche got the win with the No. 72 RMG BMW in second, with the No. 4 BILSTEIN Mercedes completing the series podium. In the SP9 Pro-Am class, the No. 24 Lionspeed Porsche got the honors, with the No. 11 Schnitzelalm Mercedes in second and the No. 6 ADVAN HRT Mercedes in third.
The IGTC calendar moves now to the Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa, which will be held on 29 and 30 June.
PHOTO: Scherer Sport PHX
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