The 52nd edition of the Nürburgring 24 Hours began with a heavy downpour that completely interrupted the starting phase of the race. Several cars were forced to pit after the formation lap, including the polesitter. The return to slick tires after about an hour also caused shuffles in the lineup.
After two hours, the Rowe-BMW #99 (Frijns/D. Vanthoor/S. van der Linde/Farfus), driven by Augusto Farfus from the start, was in the lead. The Brazilian took the lead alongside Kevin Estre in the #911 “Grello” Porsche of Manthey-EMA (Vanthoor/Estre/Güven/Preining). Both put on a real fireworks display with rain tyres, outpacing the rest of the group by more than half a minute.
The first victim of the weather conditions was Dan Harper in the #72 BMW RMG (Harper/Hesse/Weerts). Team RMG started the race on slick tyres, which proved to be a poor choice already on the formation lap. Harper immediately came back for a tire change, thus losing around 40 seconds and rushing behind the group.
Subsequently, he was the only one able to keep up with Estre and Farfus in the lead for a long time, recovering one position after another. With a spectacular drive, he managed to reach third place at the first stop, overtaking almost all the SP9 Class cars.
Departure
Photo by: Marc Fleury
“Grello” stays out too long
The decisive factor was the first pit stop, which was only allowed from lap five (all previous stops were just tire changes without refueling). Three cars, the Mercedes #3 of HRT (Maini/Bird/J. Owega/Beretta), the Porsche #5 of Herberth Motorsport (Renauer/V. Kolb/Olsen/Campbell) and the Mercedes-HRT #6 (Haupt/Fetzer /Aron/S. Owega), stopped after five laps.
One lap later, most of the field returned, but not Estre on the “Grello”. The Porsche driver completed another pass on wet tyres, losing 30 seconds.
This put the Rowe Racing BMW 30″ ahead of the #3 HRT-AMG, who, however, opted for intermediate tires rather than “real” slicks at the first stop. Two battles took place behind them . Dan Harper in the RMG-BMW and Frank Stippler in the #16 Scherer Sport Audi (Stippler/Mies/Feller/Marschall) battled for 3rd place.
Behind them, the Porsches of Herberth and “Grello” were fighting for fifth position. The battle was already taking place just under a minute from Rowe’s BMW. Since the “Grello” pitted one lap later, the stop time was lengthened accordingly and Estre ultimately prevailed in the duel.
Mercedes-AMG’s strategy was remarkable. HRT #4 (Stolz/Juncadella/Maini/Götz), GetSpeed #8 (Auer/Christodoulou/Ellis/Grenier) and GetSpeed #130 (Engel/Gounon/Schiller/Christodoulou) started on treaded slicks. It was the right choice in the training lap, but not afterwards.
Maro Engel (#130) pitted after one lap and a short lead on the GP circuit to switch to rain tyres. Luca Stolz and Adam Christodoulou did their job. However, the tires only represented an advantage from lap five onwards, when the pit window opened for all cars with rain tyres. Before then, AMGs had lost a lot of ground.
Christodoulou led an eight-lap plus training stint, which was made possible by lower fuel consumption in the rain, dropping to the back of the Top 20, but with the potential to virtually regain the lead.
#99 Rowe Racing NMW M4 GT3: Robin Frijns, Sheldon Van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, Augusto Farfus
Photo by: Gruppe C GmbH
Accident for BMW-Rowe
Sheldon van der Linde collided with two lapped cars in the Fuchsröhre and the race for victory in the “Green Hell” was fully reopened three hours and 15 minutes from the start.
The South African, aboard the #99 M4 and firmly in the lead, retired after trying to overtake the #507 BMW of WS Racing 1 (Möller/Pirrone/Ullrich/R. Klingmann) and the #420 Porsche Cayman of Four Motors (Beckwermert/Schöni/J. Kreutzpointner/A. Kreutzpointner) on the right when a collision occurred.
The Cayman, driven by one of the Kreutzpointner sisters, hit the BMW on the left rear sending it into the BMW 1 Series, which was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The latter suffered the worst, but all three pilots escaped unharmed.
The #99 Rowe BMW had done everything right at the start of the race, starting on rain tires and switching to slicks after six laps. The reward was a lead of more than 30 seconds over all other cars after pit stops. Until the accident, he was the main contender for overall victory.
#16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II: Frank Stippler, Christopher Mies, Ricardo Feller, Dennis Marschall
Photo by: Gruppe C GmbH
Scherer-Audi, RMG-BMW and “Grello” lead the race
The accident left the race wide open. The Scherer-Audi #16 (Stippler/Mies/Feller/Marschall) took the lead. Based on the pit stops, however, the #72 RMG-BMW (Harper/Hesse/Weerts) was still within range by 20″.
Among them were the Mercedes #8 GetSpeed (Auer/Christodoulou/Ellis/Grenier), still with a pit stop to make, and the Mercedes #3 HRT (Maini/Bird/J. Owega/Beretta), which stopped for one lap before Scherer’s Audi and two before BMW-RMG.
The Porsche “Grello” was also back in the running for victory, albeit with a delay of 47 seconds, but stopped two laps after the Audi.Scherer and with an effective gap of seven seconds.
Even the #98, which was 53 seconds behind the Audi, remained in contention for the triumph.
#1 Frikadelli Racing Ferrari 296 GT3: Felipe Fernandez Laser, Daniel Keilwitz, Luca Ludwig Bornheim, Nicolás Varrone
Photo by: Gruppe C GmbH
The fog stops everything in the night
The fog stopped everything during the night: it was expected because it had rained repeatedly during the day, most recently on Saturday evening. While visibility was perfect on over 90% of the track, in the GP circuit area, the highest point of the Nürburgring was intense.
Race director Walter Hornung explains that: “We have a situation where the marshals can no longer see each other and some drivers can no longer recognize the marshals. For this reason I had no choice but to interrupt the race.”
Hornung promised to contact weather experts and a few minutes later, it was announced that decisions would only be made in the morning. Thus the scenario of 2020 and 2021 was repeated, with stops during the night.
There is no parc fermé, the cars can be taken care of by the mechanics and at the time of the interruption, there were still 13 on the lead lap. Unlike 2021, when there was a controversial rule change that took into account the length of stints, the long-standing regulations now apply again, according to which lap gaps are maintained, but not time gaps, and refueling.
It is the fourth time in the last ten years that the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring has been interrupted. We will try to leave at 9.30 am.
#24h #Nürburgring #fog #stops #night
