24H Nürburgring: Fog as a spoiler 🎥

SHORTEST RACE A 14.5-hour interruption due to fog and humidity turned the Nürburgring marathon into a two-part sprint race. In the end, Manthey-Porsche took its seventh victory. Nico Müller took 5th place. The highlights of 24 hours in 16 minutes. Until the race was interrupted, there were some hair-raising scenes in the rain, which were repeated from Sunday noon after the re-start in the dry [...]

Editorial - June 6, 2021

The highlights of 24 hours in 16 minutes. Until the race was interrupted, there were some hair-raising scenes in the rain, which continued from Sunday noon after the re-start in the dry.

With a track distance of just 59 laps and 1497.302 kilometers, the 49th edition of the ADAC TOTAL 24h Race was the shortest ever. This was well below the mark of 76 laps set in 1992.

Triumph for the company anniversary
For the team from Meuspath, it was the perfect 25th anniversary present. Frenchman Kevin Estre, Italian Matteo Cairoli and Dane Michael Christensen won with the "Grello," as the bright yellow Porsche 911 GT3 R from Manthey Racing is always called, with a lead of just 8.8 seconds over the BMW M6 GT3 from last year's winner Rowe Racing. It was the second closest finish in the 51-year history of the race.

Visibility and humidity were no longer tolerable on Saturday evening, especially for the fast GT3 sports cars (Photos: Gruppe C Photography).

Safety first
In the opinion of many team bosses and the race organizers, there was no alternative to stopping the race, which started at 3:30 p.m. in dry conditions, after six hours for safety reasons due to increasing fog and dampness as night fell.

Thus, after the restart on Sunday afternoon, the classic race, which was held for the 49th time since 1970, became two sprint races. In total, the wheels rolled for only 9.5 hours of the actual 24 hours.

All participants, organizers and fans - of whom only 10,000 were allowed on site in reserved grandstand seats - are now hoping that the anniversary race from May 26 to 29, 2022, will again go the full distance and can once again take place in front of the usual backdrop of spectators along the Nordschleife.

With "Grello", Manthey Racing already achieved its seventh victory at the Eifel classic.

Ticino on the podium
While local hero Manthey Racing triumphed for the seventh time overall, it was the first victory at the Eifel classic for each of the three drivers.

In a thrilling three-way battle with a sensational overtaking maneuver on the penultimate lap, the Ticino native, who competes for Italy, secured third place on the podium for himself and his Mercedes team GetSpeed.

Nico Müller in the best-placed Audi R8 was on the tail of the fourth-placed Falken Porsche after a sensational final spurt and had to settle for fifth place. Contrary to the intention, Patric Niederhauser did not race in this car.

For Nico Müller and Audi, the podium was within reach in the end. But the race simply didn't last long enough.

Several Swiss class winners
There were class wins for three teams with Swiss crews. Philip Ellis from Zug won the SP-X class in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 with electronic steering column. 24H Series champion Miklas Born and Ranko Mijatovic won with their BMW team in the strongly fielded V2T production car class.

Martin Kroll and his brother Michael as well as daughter Chantal Prinz had it easier, who were solo in the SP6 class with their BMW M3 CSL.

In the SP3T class, Jasmin Preisig, Frédéric Yerly and Gustavo Xavier only had to give way to their teammates, who also started on a VW Golf GTI TCR, with less than one lap behind.