It’s the return of the Green Hell’s showpiece event as Lamborghini lock out the front row for the first time, with Max Verstappen making the headlines before we’ve even begun. Can he cement his status as one of the true greats of our sport with a win here and break Mercedes’ longstanding curse that has stood now for a decade? It will certainly be no easy feat, as this year’s edition has attracted a record high of 41 SP9 entries all set to battle it out over the next 24 Hours.

Winward Racing still hold a 1-2 lead by 3 minutes with the #80 of Luca Stolz ahead of the #3 of Lucas Auer, as both ROWE BMW’s have moved up the order as the night running commences with Max Hesse’s #99 up to third and the sister #1 machine of Raffaele Marciello in fifth before pitting as the hour ticked over, dropping to seventh but nonetheless is still charging hard as BMW search for back-to-back wins. In third before the pit stops commenced was the #34 of Nicki Thiim still recovering from being caught out by the weather earlier on with Jens Klingmann’s #81 M4 Touring machine in fifth.

As quarter distance passed Winward’s pair of Mercedes held a 2 minute lead over the entire SP9 field thanks to a timely tyre change, as Mattia Drudi and Klaus Bachler both slid off the track as worsening rain clashed with a wonderful sunset creating a striking image I’ve never seen in motorsport before.

The race continued without much incident, before Connor Di Phillipi pitted his #81 M3 Touring and risked bringing back slick tyres onto the car for Jens Klingmann to trial as he took over the car a dry line having now formed as darkness began to descend. On the car’s first full lap of the stint Klingmann set the fastest time of the #81 all day and was matching those still on wets.

Meanwhile BMW and Porsche moved up the field again, with ROWE Racing’s #1 of Dan Harper now up to fourth aided by the #81’s pitstop with the #44 Falken Porsche of Klaus Bachler running in fifth. The two Winward cars still ran line astern at the head of the field, with Fabian Schiller’s #80 still hounding the #3 of Lucas Auer in his first stint.

Another SP9 retirement then came through, as the SR Motorsport #11 Mercedes having damaged the rear following the earlier oil spill at Brunchen withdrew, citing the damage as being too much to fix.

The Winward duo then pitted, with Lucas Auer staying aboard the #3 and the #80 seeing Luca Stolz climb aboard the car, as the first proper night stints began with both cars still nearly 3 minutes to the good of the third-placed #99 ROWE BMW with Max Hesse now installed and tasked with closing the gap to the third-placed Nicki Thiim driven #34 Walkenhorst Aston.

As the night fully engulfed the Nurburgring, two new cars moved into the top 10: The #48 48FLOSCH by Black Falcon, driven by Sven Muller was up to eighth before its pitstop, with the #84 pole-sitting Lamborghini of Mirko Bortolotti back up into eighth while the #1 ROWE BMW of Raffaele Marciello was up to ninth while up front Auer took the overall lead from the #3, and things ran very much as they had for much of the last two hours as the field hunkered down, bracing for the bitter night and what it would bring.

The gap between the two Winward Mercedes cars was a mere 6 seconds as the night really began to kick in, with a 3 minute advantage still on the #99 ROWE BMW of Max Hesse, who themselves had a similar gap to the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston. The second ROWE car was also moving up the order, with Marciello’s #1 now up to fifth but under pressure from the #81 of Klingmann, who was now closing in as the hour ticked over.

image credit: REZAG, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons