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?

The crucial battle as the hour ticked over was the battle for the lead between the domineering #911 Manthey Porsche and the #98 ROWE BMW, with the lead gap closer than it had been since the restart yesterday afternoon. Rafaelle Marciello seemingly had the pace to beat Estre, and had been closing the gap sector by sector, lap by lap, ever since he took over the running of the #98 car. And by the time ten minutes had passed in the new hour the gap was down to under five seconds, and the race to the flag was officially on. ROWE had been giving it everything to finally put themselves in this position and Marciello was a man on a mission trying to get the sole BMW into the lead. But the significance of this was for the first time in nearly fourteen hours there was an on track battle for the lead.

But it all boiled over as Estre felt the pressure from Marciello, as in a bid to stay in the lead he sent a divebomb down the inside of the #179 Aston Martin GT4, third in SP10, making contact and sending it into a sickening barrel roll but both protagonists found themselves completely unharmed by the incident, and Sven Schadler, who was driving at the time of the incident, was importantly ok. But the result was the #911 found itself under investigation and if a hefty penalty would be sent its way that had the potential to be a race deciding moment that overshadowed the great action we’d seen up to that point. This race has really lit up in the last ninety minutes, and it’s brilliant to see the two leaders race like they did until the dramatic incident.

Marciello pitted his M4 GT3 Evo after that lap, being replaced in the car by Augusto Farfus who would now have the task of catching back up to Estre’s Porsche and taking the lead, as the #28 Abt Sportsline Audi was now running second , albeit some two and a half minutes back from Estre who’d stayed out to extend his stint and maximise the fuel efficiency. There was a precedent set by an earlier incident involving an almost identical scenario, that of race ending contact with a slower car. For Dani Juncadella’s collision with the #303 Hyundai Elantra earlier that was judged to have been avoidable, the already delayed #27 Red Bull Abt car was given a one minute and forty second time penalty to be taken at its next pit stop.

And after the Porsche #911’s pit stop the two cars closed up once again, with the #98 ROWE taking the lead on worn tyres, with Kevin Estre taking fresh slicks, the gap now six seconds in the Porsche’s favour as the two were cars were set for a second bout, with Farfus in place of Marciello.

With five hours remaining the field was still headed by the #911 Porsche roughly six seconds ahead of the #98 BMW, with third place still in the hands of Mirko Mapelli’s #28 and incredibly, the Pro/Am class Ford Mustang of David Schumacher. Fifth was now the #54 Dinamic GT Porsche ahead of David Perel’s #45 Realize Kondo Racing Ferrari and Jordan Pepper’s Red Bull Lamborghini. And as for the cars I’m highlighting this race, the #13 Beetle and Bulldog Racing’s #317 are still going strongly in SP3T with the all female crew #146 W+S Sport BMW currently in the hands of Carrie Schreiner running sixth in AT3.

On its next stop, the #98 fitted new brake pads to try and get an advantage over the #911 with fresh tyres and fuel, but even after the cycle Augusto Farfus was some six and a half seconds, and everything was still all to play for. The gaps then closed up again after a code 60 disadvantaged the #911, leading us into round two. Would there be any more dramatic moments as the two cars fought for the lead, the Porsche with Ayhancan Guven and the BMW with Farfus.

The #45 then suffered a huge accident from sixth overall and 115 laps of running, coming to a halt at the Stefan Bellof S with the #101 325i Cup car, while on the Dottinge Hore Augusto Farfus closed up and overtook Ayhancan Guven’s #911. This battle has honestly been so much fun to watch and now BMW have a real opportunity it seems as the Porsche’s perhaps lost a little of its advantage. Farfus though struggled to open a comfortable lead, Guven keeping him honest all the way through the 25km circuit. If it’s like this till the end we’re in for an absolute cracker of a final three hours.

In V6 there was significant drama as the #414 Porsche Cayman ground to a halt while leading the class, throwing its chances of winning the production car based class into the dissaray. They led by 2 laps over the #410, as bigger news broke. Following its contact with the #179 Aston Martin earlier in the race the #911 Manthey Porsche was handed a 1 minute 40 second time penalty to serve at its next pit stop, potentially handing the race to the #98 ROWE BMW from that penalty.

With three hours to go, can Grello salvage its race or will BMW win with their only car in the SP9 field? Stay tuned…

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