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.

After a decade away, Mercedes finally return to the top step of the podium at the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring with the #80 of Winward Racing taking victory after 156 laps and having looked untouchable from Saturday evening onwards. So it is that Maro Engel, Maxime Martin, Fabian Schiller and Luca Stolz who take victory at the first of the three European 24 Hour enduros. But at the very last moment a code 60 caught out the #34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin, giving the pole-sitting car 2nd place after all. Mirko Bortolotti, Luca Engstler and Patric Neiderhauser take Lamborghini’s best ever finish at this race. In the end third would go to the #34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin of Mattia Drudi, Nicki Thiim, Christian Krognes and Felipe Ferdinand Lazer complete the podium. And after originally being an April Fools’ joke, the #81 BMW M3 Touring takes the SPX class at a canter, with Neil Verhagen, Connor Di Phillipi, Ugo De Wilde and Jens Klingmann taking fifth overall in what will be the car’s only race, before it goes into a private collection.

The Winward #80 Mercedes still held a commanding 5 minute lead over the second placed #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin, with the #84 Team Abt Lamborghini of Luca Engstler dropping to third having served its penalty, with Connor Di Phillipi’s #81 BMW M3 Touring in fourth, but with all of them running slightly different fuel strategies it was still far from over. Di Phillipi and Engstler then both pit, with Jens Klingmann and Mirko Bortolotti inheriting their respective cars in their penultimate pitstops.

The next stint saw small changes to the gaps, with Mirko Bortolotti having served his #84’s penalty was now six minutes back from the #80 that still led, with Mattia Drudi’s #34 sitting just under 2 minutes back. The fight for the podium was still close, with Sheldon Van Der Linde running just 16 seconds back from Drudi’s Aston with Jens Klingmann’s #81 M3 Touring just 10 seconds back from the BMW with 90 minutes left.

A similar penalty was awarded to the #67 Ford Mustang of Frederic Vervisch, who was awarded a lengthier, 87 second stop and go to be served before the end of the race and with the final hour dawning very little else had changed in the order, save for Lionspeed GP’s #24 of Laurin Heinrich moving up to sixth.

After the final pitstops then, the order was still the #80 in front as rain fell across the track. Behind was the #34 of Mattia Drudi, some 4 and-a-half minutes back from the leader, but with only a 20 second advantage to the #99 BMW behind, with Bortolotti’s Lamborghini fifteen further seconds back in fourth, as it was confirmed a failed protest of the earlier penalty would see the 86 seconds added to its total race time.

Meanwihle with half an hour remaining the #80 made its final pitstop, and it proved a rather frantic one as the team struggled to fit the cut slick tyres, but the gap to the #34 behind was large enough that they needn’t have worried despite the conditions getting sketchier for the Spaniard. The Aston would need to pit again and did so next time by. Meanwhile, having fixed the earlier issues, Daniel Juncadella climbed back into the #3, driving the Winward Mercedes to the flag, albeit down in 38th overall and 20th in SP9.

Further back the #55 Dinamic GT Porsche of Alessandro Ghiretti ran wide at Brunchen, and when the car caught fire the gutwrenching ending was confirmed for the team, who were running 12th overall at the time. With two laps to go all Maro Engel had to do was bring it home, but behind the battle for second was raging. Heading onto the penultimate lap, the gap between Mirko Bortolotti’s #84 and the third placed #34 of Mattia Drudi stood at 85 seconds – 1 second inside the gap that Drudi needed to take second after the #84’s penalty was applied – but Drudi soon put it beyond doubt, taking 10 seconds over the next half a lap.

Overall then a hugely successful edition of the Nurburgring 24 Hours, and for myself an extra slice of satisfaction in that I increased my coverage of the race with bi-hourly as opposed to tri-hourly reports. And this is just the start – up next, the Spa 24 Prologue before a little known race called Le Mans in 4 weeks time…

I can’t wait to cover everything this summer has to offer!

Over and out,

Thomas.

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