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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a two hour stoppage thanks to a power outage that’s now been solved, the 136 strong field would restart as they’d been running at the nine lap mark, the lap before the race had been stopped. So as the field headed back to green, it was the Grello #911 Porsche who’d get things back underway ahead of Alessio Picariello’s #33 Falken Porsche and the third placed #14 GetSpeed Mercedes with Luca Stolz at the wheel. The race leader before the red flag had been the #45 Realize Kondo Racing of David Perel but now 2023 N24 winner Felipe Ferdinand Lazer who’d taken over the driving duties. The other Mercedes in with a chance was the #17 Team Bilstein of Paul Aron, with the best placed Walkenhorst Aston Martin running seventh, Nicki Thiim aboard the #34 car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this really was a race restart. The Dacia Sandero would take the green flag, and all the leading cars were now running effectively on identical fuel strategies and fresh tyres of their chosen compounds. So, entering golden hour Kevin Estre officially restarted the 2025 24 Hours of the Nurburgring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Down into turn one the cars ran almost single file with rather a lot of separation between them, with the top five unchanged as they ran onto the Nordschleife for the first time back under green flag conditions. And though the SP9 field would run cleanly through the opening lap, the second starting group would have a casualty. The #170 Toyo Tyres Toyota Supra made significant contact down into turn one and suffered damage to its front left bodywork, while the third starting group got away cleanly. And Toyota were also struggling with the #109 Yaris that failed to make the start. Meanwhile, as they raced along the Dottinge Hore Estre led Picariello by barely a second as the SP9 field battled amongst themselves. The front two were actually forming their own breakaway already, with the third placed Luca Stolz driven Mercedes all on its own. The lone ROWE BMW meanwhile had a strong start and was up to fourth, now hunting down the Bilstein Mercedes of Stolz as Ferdinand Lazer’s #45 Ferrari slipped back to fifth. But overall a clean and good getaway as we’re back to green as the #170 finally entered the pits after its accident on the restart. And on the very next lap, Kelvin Van Der Linde made the move for third as the #45 pitted for fresh tyres and a refuel along with the Scherer Sport #1 Audi of Christopher Haase. On new tyres the Dubai 24 Hour winner spun the car on fresh tyres, receiving a great reaction from the crowd, I imagine his tyres quite the opposite. Those two cars rejoined action in 21st and 22nd places respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elsewhere in SP9, the #54 Porsche of Dinamic GT was now up into the top ten thanks to some great driving from Porsche Cup regular Loek Hartog and closing in on the Falken #44 Porsche of Dennis Marschall. Having already lost its sister #170, the #160 made contact with the back of a Porsche Cup Car and pitted to fix the damage, both team’s cars now signficantly delayed. In SP9, Estre, Picariello and Van Der Linde had now set lap times two seconds faster than anyone else, with Estre nearly beating his own pole time by this point in the race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But charging though he was, Kelvin Van Der Linde was faced with the challenge of having the sun glaring straight into his cockpit, resulting in the #98 ROWE BMW spinning out the Cup 3 class #959 of SRS team Sorg Rennsport at Pflanzgarten as moments later the JUTA Racing Audi #19 of Alexey Veremenko had a dramatic spin there, somehow coming away unscathed. The #959 meanwhile suffered suspension damage and a stricken radiator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Up front, it was still Estre’s #911 having run fifteen laps now, and slowly stretching his lead to those behind. Six seconds back was the #33 Falken Porsche of Picariello, with Van Der Linde’s BMW having to deal with the chasing #17 Team Bilstein Mercedes. They though were some twenty five seconds back by this point and as the hour ticked on, the much delayed SR Racing Mercedes was now close to returning after losing a wheel in the early stages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sunset was now in full swing, and so were the next round of pit stops. The #98 BMW, #34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin, the #27 Red Bull Abt Lamborghini and Dennis Marschall’s #44 Falken Porsche all came in after 14 laps completed. With the early pitters losing time in the running before the red flag, it meant the #64 Ford ran as high as the Blue Oval had all day, with the #54 Dinamic GT Porsche now up to seventh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Estre then pitted with his race leading Porsche, as did the rest of the top seven who’d all gone a lap longer on their stints, meaning back into the lead went Felipe Fernandez Lazer in the #45 with a thirty second lead over the rest of the field. #911 was now in the hands of Ayhancan Guven as Julien Andlauer was third with the #33 Falken Porsche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Estre slowly closed on the leading Ferrrari, SR Motorsport had its second car hit trouble. The #111 of Guido Wirtz hit the barriers at Kesselchen after a sudden spin. This track seemingly isn’t a happy hunting ground for the team, with both its cars now having significant accidents. The #11 car was sitting 40th overall and two laps down on the leader, with the SP10 Mercedes #111 retiring on the spot as the #1 Audi took its third stop of the race, choosing to use its three minute joker stop. Then came in the #45 Ferrari, meaning the cars now filtered back to where they had run before their pit stops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So ahead of the night time running they run as I’ve described, but its incredibly close in Cup2, the lead battle being fought as I write this final check in. I won’t go through all the other classes because there simply isn’t time, but thankfully the Dacia is running strong, and so is the Subaru and Bulldog Racing’s Mini. But as I check out for this post Eric Lullstrom has just thrown his #50 Audi into the barriers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n