24H Nürburgring: Missed opportunities at anniversary race 🎥
Teams with Swiss factory drivers would have been in a position to win the 50th edition of the 24 Hours of Nürburgring in terms of speed. In the end, however, a number of private drivers were able to celebrate.
The local heroes from Phoenix Racing decided the 50th edition of the ADAC 24h Nürburgring in their favor after a thrilling 24-hour sprint that equaled the record distance of 159 laps of 25378 meters each.
The South African Kelvin van der Linde, the two Belgians Dries Vanthoor and Frédéric Vervisch as well as the Dutchman Robin Frijns prevailed in the Audi R8 LMS evo II with an advantage of just 55.276 seconds over their Meuspath neighbors in the Getspeed Mercedes-AMG. This was driven by DTM Champion Maximilian Götz, Fabian Schiller and Briton Adam Christodouloue.
After two Corona years with severely limited attendance, around 230,000 spectators experienced the anniversary race throughout the weekend and provided an impressive backdrop.
Spectacular accident among brothers
With its sixth success, the Phoenix team led by boss Ernst Moser moved a little closer again to the seven victories of record winner Manthey. The well-known Porsche team from the Eifel region lost its "Grello" in a spectacular accident early on Saturday evening.
Laurens Vanthoor flew off into the guard rails in a duel with his brother Dries after a slight collision with the latter's Audi at around 250 kph. The Porsche customer teams then experienced a general debacle, as did the hapless BMW teams with their inherently fast new M4 GT3s.
Swiss car in the lead
The first leader was Jonathan Hirschi from Neuchâtel, whose Ferrari 488 GT3 of Octane126 from Wallisellen had been surprisingly put on pole position by German Luca Ludwig in the top qualifying session on Friday evening. With flagging tires, Hirschi had to cede the top spot in the course of the third lap and then gradually dropped back.
A collision through no fault of Simon Trummer with final repairs threw the team from Wallisellen back in the early evening. The end was sealed by an accident of Björn Grossmann during the night.
Missed opportunities for the Swiss Audi works drivers...
Nico Müller and Patric Niederhauser also collected a total of six lead laps each with their Audi #22 from Team Car Collection (upper gallery left) due to the later refueling stop. They missed the overall winners' podium in fourth place behind the second Getspeed Mercedes by only 1'07 minutes.
However, they lost a good three times as much time due to two penalty stops for speeding under yellow. The podium was therefore within reach. Niederhauser's second car from Audi Sport Team Car Collection finished in sixth place.
The team with Ricardo Feller also had the podium in its sights (upper gallery, right) before double starter van der Linde collided with a slower car while lapping shortly before the end of the ninth hour of racing and vehemently threw the Audi into the tire piles.
...and Mercedes drivers
The lap record was realized by Philip Ellis in a Mercedes-AMG (upper gallery center), which he shared with Raffaele Marciello from Ticino and Luca Stolz (D). A puncture caused by a "graze" with a competitor soon threw them back a lap. At the finish they had to settle for 7th place and the fastest race lap by the man from Zug.
Philip Ellis: "I'm taking a lot of positive impressions from this race. We were the fastest car in the field no matter what the weather conditions were and made no mistakes. Our expectations were obviously different - we had what it takes to win here."
Yannicks Mettler's GT3 Mercedes was sidelined by an accident as early as the first third of the race. And Julien Apothéloz's hopes of crossing the finish line in the first Nürburgring marathon were dashed around one and a half hours before the end of the race when Sandro Trefz (D) crashed while lying in a good 14th position during a brief but tricky rain phase.
Applause for three class wins
Other Swiss drivers had reason to celebrate. As in the 2022 VLN races, Mauro Calamia, Ivan Jacoma, Roberto Pampanini and the German Kai Riemer took victory in the strong Cup 3 class with the pink Cayman GT4 CS (middle gallery, right).
As underdogs, the brothers Armando, Dario and Luigi Stanco from Winterthur virtually outgrew themselves with the Seat Leon Cup Racer from 2016 (middle gallery center), which is looked after by Autorama Motorsport and whose chassis already has a good 70,000 kilometers under its belt. In a flawless race, they won the SP3T class of two-liter turbos over the factory Subaru (technical failure) and the two accident- and defect-plagued VW Golf TCR of Max Kruse Racing.
Team boss Stefan Tanner: "It was very close, a thriller of nerves. We could only win this race with a good strategy and flawless team performance from drivers and mechanics. 15 minutes before the end, a defective injection valve made itself felt. We decided that the Seat would finish with only three cylinders. And that's how we did it."
Jasmin Preisig and Gustavo Xavier finished 2nd in their Golf TCRs (lower center gallery), and teammate Fred Yerly and his partners finished 3rd.
Only their BMW M3 GTR had to bring over the laps the family Kroll (Martin and his brother Michael) and Prinz (Martin's daughter Chantal and son-in-law Alexander). But an engine failure in practice caused their team a lot of work, which was rewarded with the finish and the logical victory in the SP6 class, which was only occupied by them.
Second places as a sense of achievement
Other teams with Swiss crews took good second places in well-staffed classes. Marco Timbal, Ivan Reggiani and Nicola Bravetti, for example, with a Cayman GT4 CS in the alternative drive class. Likewise Miklas Born with an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in the SP10 class (lower gallery on the left) and Ranko Mijatovic in a BMW 330i (lower gallery on the right) in the VT2 rear-wheel drive production car class.
Full results and more information about the race can be found on the event's homepage.
