[ADAC] Nürburgring 24 hours 2023

[erwin greven]

Nürburgring Wednesday Notebook

Sportscar365’s Wednesday notebook from the Nürburgring 24 paddock…

by Daniel Lloyd
May 17, 2023



***The 51st edition of the Nürburgring 24 kicked off with the Adenauer Racing Day event on Wednesday afternoon. Spectators packed into Adenau town center as cars and drivers assembled for a traditional preview ahead of track action starting on Thursday.

***The SP9 field at the Nürburgring 24 has been reduced to 32 cars following the withdrawal of CP Racing’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo. One of the drivers, Charles Putman, had his permit to compete stripped after he incurred a penalty for speeding in a Code 60 slow zone during the second N24 Qualifiers race. The American team then pulled its entry because of that decision.

***Four-time N24 winner Romain Dumas has joined Huber Motorsport’s Porsche lineup alongside Come Ledogar, Lars Kern and Dennis Fetzer. The Frenchman is returning to the event after one year away. Dumas’ three previous outings came with Rutronik Racing in 2021, Frikadelli Racing Team in 2019 and Manthey in 2018 but all ended in retirement.

***ADAC GT Masters race winner Ben Green has been added to the No. 28 PROsport Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Alex Brundle, who was announced to be driving for the team, has instead joined the No. 128 Muelhner Motorsport Porsche 992 GT3 Cup.

***The Aston Martin from Doerr Motorsport now includes German racer Peter Posavac, alongside Ben and Phil Doerr and Aston Martin factory driver Darren Turner. Posavac did two NLS races in a Schnitzelalm Racing Mercedes-AMG earlier this season.

***Konrad Motorsport has completed its Lamborghini lineup with the signing of American driver Danny Soufi and Pavel Lefterov from Bulgaria. Soufi has raced with Konrad’s LMP3 operation in Prototype Cup Germany while Lefterov has recent GT4 experience. Both drivers are making their GT3 debuts this weekend.

***The initial Balance of Performance for the event has been adjusted since a preliminary document was published on May 8. The new BoP, issued on Wednesday, adds 15 kg to the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 along with some other adjustments.

***The two Lamborghinis in the SP9 field have also received a 1 mm air restrictor diameter increase and a 1.3-degree increase in rear wing angle. An additional 4 liters has been applied to the Ferrari 296 GT3’s maximum fuel capacity, meanwhile.

***Last year’s pole-sitter Octane 126 elected not to enter its new Ferrari due to the tight schedule for vehicle and parts supply impacting its N24 preparations. The Swiss team missed the opening three NLS rounds but plans to rejoin the Nordschleife-based series later this year. It recently tested both of its 296 GT3s at Paul Ricard.

***The fan-favorite Opel Manta has returned to the N24 after being withdrawn from last year’s race due to a workshop fire that damaged the car two weeks before the event. Driver Olaf Beckmann told Sportscar365 that the roof had to be replaced, but the other main parts including the engine survived and are on the rebuilt car this weekend.

***Mercedes-AMG’s head of Customer Racing Stefan Wendl has advocated for the protection of grid diversity at the N24 in the coming years. “From the motorsport fan perspective, I have some concerns about the future,” he said during a media call on Wednesday. “Because we see more and more struggles for teams to get feasible cars. This is part of the discussion in our strategic working group with the ADAC and with other manufacturers.”

***Wendl suggested that as road cars become more complex through electrification, smaller teams might struggle to build and run production-based cars in competition. “I started my racing career as a data engineer student at the Nürburgring, running very small cars, and living the dream… this is what the NLS was made for.”

***Audi Sport Team Car Collection’s lineup has an “underdog status” according to team manager Denis Ferlemann, who reckons the less experienced factory quartet of Gilles Magnus, Luca Engstler, Dennis Marschall and Max Hofer shouldn’t be overlooked.

***Felermann told Sportscar365: “They all have experience on the Nordschleife. Gilles Magnus couldn’t do a preparation race before, but he did a lot of laps in TCR and we gave him laps on the Fridays of NLS. I think they are not experienced like Christopher Haase, Patric Niederhauser and Chris Mies, but I think we shouldn’t underestimate them.”

***BMW M Motorsport is fielding a ‘media car’ run by Team RMG, which is also responsible for the Junior Team entry. Hillclimb specialist Joerg Weidinger is teaming up with journalists Jethro Bovingdon, Christian Gebhardt and Guido Naumann in the SP10 entry.

***Additionally, the grandson of Mini Cooper creator John Cooper is racing this weekend. Charlie Cooper is driving Bulldog Motorsport’s No. 126 Mini Cooper Works in the VT2 front-wheel-drive category.

***13 cars are already confirmed to take part in the pole-deciding Top Qualifying 2 shootout on Friday. The participant list includes Frikadelli Racing Team which took victory in the six-hour N24 Qualifiers race last month.

***The other Top Qualifying 2 slots will be determined by the results from Top Qualifying 1. The rest of the SP9 field, and the two Mercedes-AMG GT2s that are entered into SP-X, will compete for the remaining places.

***Thursday’s track action consists of two qualifying sessions, which are treated as practice runs but can be used to form the grid if Top Qualifying gets canceled. The first 105-minute session starts at 1:15 p.m. (7:15 a.m. ET) and the second session lasting three and a half hours is scheduled for 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET).

https://sportscar365.com/other-series/n ... otebook-3/

[MonteCristo]

A fun lap.

[erwin greven]

Nürburgring Thursday Notebook

Sportscar365’s Thursday notebook from the Nürburgring 24 paddock…

by Daniel Lloyd
May 18, 2023



***Edoardo Mortara is on reserve driver duties for Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein after being added to the No. 4 entry, according to team principal Sean Paul Breslin. Bilstein program operator Haupt Racing Team arranged on Monday for Mortara to be on standby if Philip Ellis, who has been unwell, is unable to race. Ellis was in the paddock on Thursday and missed the first track session but later took part in Qualifying 2.

***An updated Top Qualifying 2 entry list has been issued ahead of Friday’s pole-deciding shootout. It confirms that one of the Top Q2 slots will go to the fastest SP9 Pro-Am car across the three preliminary qualifying sessions. The average value of each Pro-Am car’s five fastest sector times will be taken into account.

***WTM by Rinaldi Racing didn’t complete any laps in the first qualifying practice session due to electrical issues on its Ferrari 296 GT3. It first hit trouble on the way back from the Adenauer Racing Day fan event on Wednesday.

***Defending N24 winner Frederic Vervisch reckons the dry weather forecast means that lap times are likely to get significantly quicker as the weekend progresses. “It felt quite slippery, so I expect the times to improve quite a bit during the week and they expect dry conditions, so it’s just going to get better and better,” said Vervisch. “This will just evolve day by day and on Sunday it should be the fastest track available.”

***The Belgian remained earnest about Audi’s odds for its N24 defense. Vervisch’s Audi Sport Team Scherer PHX car, which he shares with Mattia Drudi, Dennis Lind and Ricardo Feller, carries the No. 1 in reference to its victory in last year’s event.

***Vervisch said: “In the end, there are so many stories about that, if you drive with number one. We won last year, we won in 2019, we will try again. We participate so we have a chance. I’m now a bit experienced in this race by winning and losing it. You need all the factors to come into place.”

***It is rare for a GT3 manufacturer to win back-to-back N24s. Audi was the last to do so in 2014 and 2015, with different versions of the R8 and with different teams in Phoenix and WRT. Before that, Porsche managed four consecutive victories from 2006 to 2009.

***ABT Sportsline is channeling the Italian spirit for its first N24 with Lamborghini. “We are [based] very close to the Italian border,” team principal Thomas Biermaier told Sportscar365. “We are half Italians. Our favorite restaurant in Kempten is also an Italian restaurant. So we have quite some emotions.”

***The Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R will go on to contest next weekend’s DTM curtain raiser at Oschersleben. It will be joined by the team’s other, green-based ‘grello’ Porsche which is due to attend the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa official test on Tuesday and Wednesday. Manthey’s N24 operations truck has a DTM logo on its side.

***Manthey EMA has not decided whether it will do more NLS races after the N24, considering its maiden DTM program wil be well underway. “It’s really difficult with the time plans,” managing director Nicolas Raeder told Sportscar365. “We do not have two crews. If we have DTM, we cannot do NLS.” Three of the remaining five NLS rounds clash with DTM events.

***Raeder added that Manthey EMA might consider further Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli outings after Spa, depending on its result there. The team already did the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour, on the home turf of its Australian partner EMA Motorsport. “I hope, but I think it depends on Spa,” Raeder said when asked if more IGTC races are on the cards.

***Pirelli has brought new P Zero slick and wet compounds for its SP9 teams — Dinamic GT and Doerr Motorsport — to an event that serves as a development test bed. “Once again this year, the Nürburgring 24 will be the testing ground for our range of products intended for GT3 cars,” said the supplier’s track racing manager Matteo Braga.

***Five tire companies are represented in SP9, the same number as last year. 25 cars are on Michelins while Yokohama (Walkenhorst Motorsport), Goodyear (Schnitzelalm Racing, Racing One, PROsport Racing), Falken (Falken Motorsports) and Pirelli are also on the grid.

***Max Hesse feels that the BMW Junior Team is “well prepared” for its third N24 in the SP9 ranks but acknowledged that perfect preparation is “no guarantee” of victory, especially after last year when the RMG-operated entry had two costly accidents.

***Hesse, Dan Harper and Neil Verhagen contributed to BMW’s strong start to the Nordschleife season that saw the Munich manufacturer win three NLS races. “The BMW M4 GT3 feels good on the Nordschleife,” said Hesse. “I think that we have particular strengths at top speed and at night.”

***Land-Motorsport is “happy to be back” at the N24 after missing last year’s edition when Audi Sport only had two factory-supported entries and gave priority to full-time NLS teams. Team principal Christian Land told Sportscar365 that the German squad held meetings with Audi Sport earlier this year that gave a “positive sign” about a deal emerging: “We got the confirmation that we could enter the car in February. Since then, we are working quite a lot on getting the program running.”

***Land recently expanded into the 24H Series, running two GT3 Audis in the 12-hour races at Mugello and Spa. When asked about the rest of the team’s programs for this year, Land said: “We entered two cars in Creventic and are working on some other projects for the 2023 season. We will also do something that I cannot talk about at the moment.”

**Audi Sport head of customer racing Chris Reinke explained that the budget saved from the manufacturer’s withdrawal from IGTC were reinvested into the N24 and 24H Spa programs, contributing to a larger Nürburgring contingent than last year. “We decided this year to focus more on Nürburgring and Spa, entering with a bigger volume with a bigger focus on these races, and dropped Intercontinental GT for it,” said Reinke. “In the past, we tried to get everything going.”

***Another large crowd is expected for the second N24 edition to be held without COVID-19 measures. The campsites around the Nordschleife became full on Thursday and remaining campers were instructed to head to Mullenbach on the Grand Prix loop.

***Live coverage of all sessions is available on the official N24 YouTube channel. Jonny Palmer, Bruce Jones, Peter Snowdon, Peter MacKay and Paul Truswell form the English-language commentary team.

***A third and final qualifying practice is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. local time (7:30 a.m. ET) on Friday. The two-part Top Qualifying then starts at 5:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. ET).

https://sportscar365.com/other-series/n ... otebook-8/

[erwin greven]

Marciello Beats Engel to N24 Pole With Record Lap

Raffaele Marciello breaks lap record en route to N24 pole; leads Mercedes-AMG 1-2…

by Davey Euwema May 19, 2023



Raffaele Marciello captured pole position for the 51st Nürburgring 24, breaking the qualifying lap record and leading a Mercedes-AMG 1-2 ahead of Maro Engel.

Marciello steered the No. 4 Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo to a time of 8:09.058 in Friday’s Top Qualifying 2 shootout, beating Engel’s No. 3 GetSpeed car to pole by 0.422 seconds.

The Swiss driver broke the lap record which had been held by Laurens Vanthoor since 2018.

Both Marciello and Engel set their laps on the first lap, although Kelvin van der Linde posted his quickest time at the second time of asking, reeling off a 8:10.498 in the ABT Sportsline Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 to go third.

He was joined by the No. 30 Frikadelli Racing Team Ferrari 296 GT3 of Nicky Catsburg on the second row, with Frank Stippler completing the top five in the No. 5 Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.

Nico Menzel came sixth aboard the No. 44 Falken Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, with Thursday pacesetter Arjun Maini seventh behind the wheel of the No. 6 HRT Mercedes-AMG.

Frederic Vervisch qualified eighth for defending winners Audi Sport Team Scherer PHX, with the top ten overall completed by Markus Winkelhock’s No. 16 Audi and the No. 2 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG driven by Maximilian Goetz.

Top Qualifying 1 Red Flagged After Krognes Crash

Five cars advanced to Top Qualifying 2 after setting the quickest times during the Top Qualifying 1 session that took place beforehand.

It was led by the No. 16 Scherer PHX Audi of Ricardo Feller, followed by the No. 5 sister car in the hands of Alexander Sims, along with WTM Racing by Rinaldi Racing’s Ferrari, the No. 2 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG and the No. 1 Scherer PHX Audi of Mattia Drudi.

The session was delayed significantly due to a red flag triggered by a crash for the No. 102 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW of Christian Krognes.

Krognes made heavy contact with the tire barrier at Hatzenbach, which severely damaged the left side of the car.

The Norwegian driver was unhurt in the crash and told the official N24 broadcast that he “suddenly lost traction on the front axle.”

Notable cars that missed the cut for Top Qualifying 2 included the No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche of Kevin Estre who ended up on the bubble and will start from 20th place.

Another BMW to hit trouble was the No. 98 ROWE Racing example in which Sheldon van der Linde lost control and slid into the barrier at Pflanzgarten.

The South African crossed the line with light left-hand side damage and qualified 33rd, behind the incident-free SP9 runners and the two Mercedes-AMG GT2s that also participated in Top Qualifying.

Qualification 1
Qualification 2

[Cheeveer]

https://spotters.guide/





Will work this weekend so will miss much of the action. Sad.

[erwin greven]

Frikadelli Ferrari Ends German Dominance at N24

Non-German car victorious at Nürburgring 24 for the first time since 2002…

by Davey Euwema
May 21, 2023



Frikadelli Racing Team ended two decades of German manufacturer dominance at the Nürburgring 24 by claiming a breakthrough victory with its Ferrari 296 GT3.

The No. 30 car driven by David Pittard, Nicky Catsburg, Earl Bamber and Felipe Fernandez Laser finished 26.9 seconds clear of the No. 98 ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Maxime Martin, Sheldon van der Linde, Marco Wittmann and Dries Vanthoor.

It marked the first win for a non-German car in the Eifel endurance classic since Zakspeed’s 2002 victory with the Chrysler Viper GTS-R.

It was also the first 24-hour race victory for the Ferrari 296 GT3.

The Klaus Abbelen-led squad, which switched from Porsche to Ferrari this year, started the race from fourth position, but Pittard climbed up to second place in the opening hour.

The British driver gained third position at the start before moving past the No. 4 Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Raffaele Marciello with a run off the Dottinger Höhe to take second.

The No. 30 Ferrari was then among the group of cars to pit first after five laps, which allowed Pittard to leap to the head of the field with a shorter pitstop.

It remained there until the end of the fifth hour, when Catsburg pitted off-sequence due to a left-rear puncture.

The Ferrari’s strong pace allowed Frikadelli to gradually regain the upper hand and move back to the lead, opening up a gap of nearly two minutes at halfway.

Frikadelli then managed the gap through the second half of the race on Sunday and finished comfortably clear of the chasing BMW, even though Martin and Vanthoor brought the margin to under a minute in the final hour.

With 161 laps completed, the winning Ferrari crew also achieved a new distance record in a race that took place in dry conditions throughout.

ROWE Racing delivered the BMW M4 GT3 its first N24 podium, while Mercedes-AMG finished third and fourth.

The No. 4 Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein crew of Marciello, Luca Stolz, Philip Ellis and Edoardo Mortara completed the podium, beating the No. 2 Team GetSpeed entry of Adam Christodoulou, Fabian Schiller and Maximilian Goetz which finished second last year.

The Mercedes-AMG entries challenged early on but gradually lost ground to the Frikadelli Ferrari through the night.

They also lost one of their frontrunning cars when Maro Engel’s No. 2 GetSpeed machine had contact with a Porsche Cayman at the Stefan-Bellof-S, inflicting damage to the right rear that ultimately led to retirement.

The top five was completed by the No. 96 Rutronik Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Dennis Olsen, Julien Andlauer and Matteo Cairoli, with the No. 39 Audi Sport Team Land trio of Christopher Mies, Christopher Haase and Patric Niederhauser sixth.

Audi and Porsche both saw potentially challenging cars fall away before Sunday morning. The No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche had a surging start from 20th, but was retired following after dropping out of contention when Kevin Estre hit the tire barrier at Hohenrain in a puncture-induced spin.

The No. 1 and No. 5 Audi were eliminated in simultaneous but individual incidents on the Grand Prix circuit during the night.

Frederic Vervisch and Frank Stippler both lost control of their respective cars due to fluids on the track dropped by another competitor and crashed.

The No. 20 WTM by Rinaldi Racing Ferrari finished seventh, ahead of the No. 6 Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein car and the No. 44 Falken Motorsports crew of Joel Eriksson, Tim Heinemann, Nico Menzel and Martin Ragginger.

The No. 27 ABT Sportsline Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 driven by Kelvin van der Linde, Marco Mapelli, Jordan Pepper and Nicki Thiim completed the top ten..

The Lamborghini was an early leader with Mapelli at the wheel, but lost ground due to a puncture in the second hour.

In the SP-X class, Mercedes-AMG Team HRT’s No. 46 Mercedes-AMG GT2 laid claim to class honors by finishing 34th overall.

The Cup2 class was won by the Kkraemer Racing Porsche 992 GT3 Cup of Karsten Kraemer, Christopher Brueck, Alexej Veremenko and SELV.

The No. 86 FK Performance Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 driven by Christian Konnerth, Maxime Oosten, Lorenz Stegmann and Miklas Born claimed victory in SP 10.

A dominant run brought the No. 830 Hyundai Motorsport Elantra TCR of Manuel Lauck, Marc Basseng and Mikel Azcona a second consecutive class win in TCR.

https://sportscar365.com/other-series/n ... ce-at-n24/

[Everso Biggyballies]

Deserved win I think overall for Frikadell.who had pace through the weekend.. Anyway its good to not see a German car win. Nothing against German cars.... I drive one daily, but its good to see some non German car winning after a long run of home wins..

[Everso Biggyballies]

Nice story.....

RIP Sabine.

For those that dont get the link Klaus was Sabine' Schmitz's husband and regular racing partner. It was Klaus and Sabine who set Frikadelli Racing up nearly 20 years ago

[erwin greven]

Full race will be uploaded soon.

[erwin greven]

Nürburgring Post-Race Notebook

Sportscar365’s post-race notebook from the 51st edition Nürburgring 24…

by Daniel Lloyd
May 22, 2023



***Frikadelli Racing Team boss Klaus Abbelen dedicated the organization’s long-awaited first Nürburgring 24 victory to Sabine Schmitz, his partner and co-driver who passed away two years ago at the age of 51. After an emotional outcome, Abbelen said: “Bee, this win is for you! You carried us from heaven to our greatest team success.”

***Management figures from Audi Sport, BMW, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche offered congratulations to Abbelen’s Frikadelli squad, which ended a 21-year wait for a non-German car to win the N24.

***Audi Sport head of customer racing Chris Reinke told Sportscar365: “We are all happy for Klaus Abbelen and his team – a legend out here at the ‘Ring – to secure his first win in his first outing with the Ferrari in a 24-hour race. That is a very unique one. We are all racers enough to appreciate and congratulate the team and Ferrari.”

***Ferrari became the fourth different manufacturer to win the Nürburgring 24 in as many years after BMW, Porsche and Audi. The Italian manufacturer also joined the ‘big four’ German brands as a winner of both 24-hour GT races at the Nürburgring and Spa.

***Ferrari’s sports car racing director Antonello Coletta described the result as a “historic” one, saying: “To have interrupted the German manufacturers’ many years of hegemony over this race in this top-level competitive scenario is a truly incredible achievement.”

***David Pittard, Earl Bamber and Felipe Fernandez Laser became first-time N24 winners. Nicky Catsburg, meanwhile, earned his second victory after winning with this year’s runner-up ROWE Racing in 2020.

***Bamber has now won three out of four of the major 24-hour races. He previously won at Le Mans in 2015 and Spa in 2020. “So now I’ve only got Daytona left, then I’ve got everything,” Bamber told Sportscar365.

***Frikadelli received its new Ferrari in February, having sold both of its Type-991.2 Porsche 911 GT3 Rs to customers. Earlier in the weekend Abbelen told Sportscar365 that he would wait until after the N24 to decide if he will field the Ferrari in other races. Frikadelli also did the Rolex 24 at Daytona, CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa and Kyalami 9 Hour with Porsche.

***Haupt Racing Team claimed its first N24 podium at the fourth time of asking. The team confirmed to Sportscar365 that Edoardo Mortara completed one stint in the third-placed No. 4 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo. However, the Swiss driver was not shown on the official results document and did not attend the post-race press conference.

***All of the Scherer PHX Audis ran with ‘Danke Ernst’ stickers honoring Phoenix Racing founder and team principal Ernst Moser, who is stepping down from his long-held role at the end of this year.

***Moser will remain involved in the team but only as a part-time consultant. Scherer bought a majority stake in Phoenix at the start of this year. When asked if the organization has lined up a new team principal, Moser told Sportscar365: “We are on it. I would like my son to do it because he is doing most daily work already.”

***Moser was given the honor of serving as lollipop man for the final pit stop of the No. 40 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II. After releasing Mike Rockenfeller for the final stint, he was greeted with a standing ovation from team and manufacturer crew members in the garage.

***The double blow of both the No. 1 and No. 5 PHX Audis crashing out on oil at the same place during the night occurred due to their proximity to each other on track. “They were 20 seconds apart,” Moser explained. “The biggest problem was the first car crashing. The driver had to first calm down to give us the information. This took a bit long and the reaction was only five seconds before the second one crashed. He was on the button, but it was too late.”

***Marco Mapelli said that ABT Sportsline made significant setup changes after encountering three punctures on its Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. The team raised the pressures “very high” and reduced the camber as much as it could. “We have never ran [such] low camber,” Mapelli told Sportscar365. “We kept destroying the tires anyway, but we could finish the stint at least.”

***Mapelli added that ABT did a “great job” in preparing for its first N24 with Lamborghini. When asked if he sees future potential in the project, the Lamborghini factory driver said: “I believe so. I believe the team wants to continue… this is really cool because of the experience they have.”

***ROWE Racing team principal Hans-Peter Naundorf explained why the BMW M4 GT3s made strides during the night. “This is natural with the turbos,” he told Sportscar365. “The air cool goes down and you get better pressures inside. This is standard procedure. It’s the same at Spa.”

***The No. 102 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW, which had a strong run after bouncing back from an accident in Top Qualifying, retired with damage to its oil and water system after Thomas Neubauer took to a curb while trying to overtake a lower-category car.

***Half of the GT3 cars in the 32-vehicle SP9 class were classified as retirements.

***In addition to being a partner on the winning Frikadelli Ferrari, Rinaldi Racing also won the SP9 Pro-Am class with the Wochenspiegel Team Monschau organization which finished seventh overall.

***Daniel Keilwitz broke the N24 event lap record in the WTM by Rinaldi Ferrari, setting a time of 8:08.006 at an average speed of 187.212 km/h (116 mph) in the 15th hour, shortly before 7 a.m. It eclipsed the new N24 qualifying lap record that Raffaele Marciello posted last Friday by 1.052 seconds.

***Both the Ferrari 296 GT3 and the last non-German car to win the N24 — Zakspeed’s Chrysler Viper GTS-R — were assembled by French manufacturer ORECA.

***The SP10 class was “robbed of a grandstand finish” according to KCMG team manager Matt Howson, after its Toyota GR Supra GT4 Evo developed a right-rear puncture with under two hours to go. The car had already recovered a three-minute deficit after a clash with two SP9 cars and was battling with the No. 86 FK Performance Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 until its issue.

***Howson told Sportscar365 that KCMG and FK Performance were “basically running them like SP9s” in a fierce battle on Sunday.

***The all-American Hyundai Motorsport N crew of Taylor Hagler, Michael Lewis, Mason Filippi and Harry Gottsacker finished second in TCR behind their dominant teammates in the No. 830 Hyundai Elantra N TCR.

***Ollis Garage Racing, the team running the No. 118 Dacia Logan, confirmed in a statement on social media that the damage sustained in a crash involving the No. 54 Dinamic GT Porsche 911 GT3 R meant the end of the project. The team will be unable to source a replacement engine for the car for it to continue racing.

***Maximilian Weissermel, the driver of the Dacia, was taken to a local hospital for checks but has since been released. Dinamic driver Laurin Heinrich was found to be at fault for the incident and was handed a €3,000 ($3,245 USD) fine.

***The popular Opel Manta completed 117 laps and finished third in SP3 class, behind Toyota Gazoo Racing Team Thailand. Manta driver Volker Strycek made his record-extending 45th appearance in the N24. Click here for a full rundown of the class results.

****Raffaele Marciello was presented with the Glickenhaus Trophy on the starting grid after taking pole for Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein. Jim Glickenhaus wasn’t in attendance to present the award after his team opted to forgo the race for the first time since 2014.

***SRO Motorsports Group is open to allowing other series to licence its GT2 platform, according to founder and CEO Stephane Ratel. Mercedes-AMG ran a pair of GT2 cars in the SP-X class at the N24, with the best one completing 144 laps and finishing 34th.

***Speaking from last weekend’s SRO America round, Ratel said: “I would love to. Let’s not forget that ADAC Nordrhein did our first GT4 licensing back in 2008 or something like that. They were the first ones. They never used the name GT4, it was SP10. But it was GT4 from a long, long time ago. It’s a matter of the ADAC Nordrhein, which is a separate club, if they want to do it. Of course, we’re very much in favor of developing GT2 in a number of series.”

***Event organizer ADAC Nordrhein posted a weekend attendance figure of 235,000 spectators, beating last year’s number by 5,000.

***A marshal who was on duty in the Schwalbenschwanz area passed away after collapsing on Sunday. The 57-year-old, an experienced Nordschleife trackside worker, received immediate medical treatment and was taken to the circuit medical center by ambulance, then to the intensive care unit of Mayen hospital. In a statement, the race organizer said that “resuscitation measures were ultimately unsuccessful.”

***Race director Walter Hornung commented: “The thoughts of all organizers of the 24H Nürburgring are with the family of the deceased.”

https://sportscar365.com/other-series/n ... tebook-10/