One week on from a historic hatrick for Scuderia Ferrari at Le Mans, Porsche and co. look to defend their glory on home soil. It’s the one and only 24 Hours of the Nurburgring, and it promises to be a brilliant one at that. But who will be victorious in the most unpredictable race of the year?

To open the hour there was an incident involving two lower class cars – the #35 Walkenhorst Aston of SP10, and the V6 class Porsche Cayman #396 of Adrenalin Motorsport, as the race stayed relatively quiet, just trundling along. I did get the feeling it was the calm before the storm, especially considering the race had seen very little major changes for hours now. As the sun came up, the #44 Falken Porsche got itself back on the lead lap by a small margin with Dennis Marschall at the wheel, while the #27 Red Bull Abt had slipped off the lead lap and now ran tenth overall after some trouble during the night, Jordan Pepper was now behind the wheel.

As for the other stories I’m following, the Dacia is still running healthily. Still 6th in SP3T and having moved up to 114th overall the car stood a real chance of getting to the end, which ultimately was the team’s main goal. In terms of that class, it was led by Charles Weerts in the #310 FK Performance Sport BMW M2. Bulldog Racing who are running the Mini Cooper JCW currently sit 84th overall and fifth in class in what’s been a really strong run from that team. It hasn’t been quite so strong a run from the #13 crew, running the VW Beetle Cup car, It’s certainly had a lot thrown at it but the loveable Beetle has so far refused to give up. It may be last in SP3T and down in 124th, but the fact it’s still alive and kicking is to be absolutely commended, a true product of the hardcore enthusiasts of this race. And the WS Sport #146, this race’s all female crew currently stands just outside the top 100, in 107th overall and sixth out of eight runners in that class for TCR and GT4 cars running alternative fuels.

But at the front its still a comfortable lead for Manthey’s #911 Porsche, ahead of the #98 ROWE BMW and Walkenhorst’s #34 Aston Martin with fourth placed occupied by the #28 Team Abt Sportsline Lamborghini of Luca Engstler. Ferrari’s lone car, the #45 Realize Kondo racing machine currently piloted by Felipe Ferdinand Lazer is running strongly in fifth and still massively offset in terms of strategy, but they’re absolutely in this fight. In total, the top nine cars are now on the lead lap with the as yet unmentioned cars being the #64 HRT Ford Mustang of David Schumacher, which despite being officially recorded as a Pro/Am class car is still running a fine 6th place and the #54 Dinamic GT Porsche of Matteo Cairoli in 7th.

A huge drama then came for the #651 Porsche Cayman GT4, which damaged its front suspension and crabbed along the Dottinge-Hohe and back to the pits with a puncture to boot. And there was incredibly another Cayman GT4, that of Rene Hober’s #982 sitting at the Foxhole having spun into the barriers. A third car in succession then hit issues and dramatically it was the #34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin of David Pittard that had been running third and was in contention for the overall win, but now that looked in jeopardy. An attempt to use the old faithful ctrl alt delete failed, and Pittard was forced to run the rest of the lap in a limp, losing buckets of time and effectively ruining the team’s chance of victory with Manthey and ROWE’s frontrunners looking bulletproof. Pittard eventually made it back to the pits and the car went into the garage as Walkenhorst attempted to diagnose the issue. What had been shaping up to be a real challenger to Manthey would end up nothing more than another car claimed by the ring, retiring shortly after.

And before you could digest that drama for Walkenhorst, the Muhlner Motorsport #918 Cup 2 Porsche that was running 2nd in the class was now found running worryingly slow through the Nordschleife, having been in the barriers and was now limping back to the pits with a rear right puncture. Like Pittard, the chance of a class win was now in tatters, giving all the advantage now to the #948 LOSCH Racing Porsche which now had a one lap lead over the entire Cup 2 field. The next car to find the barriers would be the #80 TM Racing.com Porsche 718 of SP7, before the 44th overall #97 Porsche, also in the SP7 class.

By now while the top two had been virtually unchanged for hours, the new third placed car following the Walkenhorst Aston’s demise was the #28 Abt Sportsline Lamborghini of Mirko Mapelli, some two minutes and fifty seconds down as Jusuf Owega set his personal best in the #65 Ford and catching Mikael Grenier’s #17 GetSpeed Mercedes ahead of him. Meanwhile, the gap between the leading #911 Porsche and #98 ROWE BMW slimmed to just under ninety seconds, the closest it had been in hours.

And just for good measure there was one more moment of drama before the fifteenth hour ended, with the #169 of family team Dorr Motorsport in the SP10 class. Sven Schadler lost control and speared into a head on impact with the barriers, ending the team’s day prematurely and in dramatic fashion. The car was 107th overall and 7th in the SP10 class, the impact huge enough to end its day immediately.

So, Sunday morning has brought its fair share of attrition, but who will be next to have a moment of drama? Stay tuned.

thumbnail credit – Philipp Ganjon, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons