Hallo an alle. Willkommen zur 51. Auflage des 24-Stunden-Rennens auf dem legendären Nürburgring Nordchleife. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the 51st edition of the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring at the legendary Nurburgring Nordchleife. The 51st running of this legendary motor race captured the imagination before the green flag even flew. We saw this year a bigger crowd for the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring since even before the virus pandemic happened. The starting grid, packed. The campsites, packed. The grandstands, overflowing. The fans are here at the Nurburgring to witness a fabulous running of this fabled motor race. The probable favorites are the three Ferrari's, the two new 296 GT3 cars built not by the Italian Michelotto firm that have built so many competition sports cars for Ferrari in the past, but by the French Oreca company.
These three cars are the #19 racing one entry in the hands of the all-German lineup of Stefan Aust, Christian Kohlhaas, Luca Ludwig, and Johannes Stengel. Then comes the #20 Wochenspiegel Team Monschau with Rinaldi Racing 296 GT3 with Dutch driver Indy Dontje leading the charge. Dontje spearheads the German/Italian effort with the three German aces joining him, Daniel Keilwitz, Jochen Krumbach, and Leonard Weiss. Ferrari have been involved in motorsport for such a long time and now have really ramped up their efforts between Formula 1, Hypercar in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and GT3 racing. The fans are ready as we see a banner on the grid that says "Let's go through Green Hell together. Hashtag, World's Fastest Family."
It is a family of fans here at the Nurburgring, called "the green hell" because of the forests and because this track is without doubt the toughest race track to drive on the face of planet earth. We have one of the strongest GT3 class fields (SP9 in Nurburgring endurance racing categorization), if not the strongest ever. Over 30 cars in the SP9 division alone! Another possible factor for the great fan turnout is Chamber of Commerce weather on this Ascension Day holiday weekend. Earlier in the week, we'd never put the chips on the table about that because the weather here at the Nurburgring Nordschleife was dreadful with rain and fog and thunderstorms, and everything else. You name it.
The crowds have come to see their heroes race, from here in Germany, and from further afield alike. The doubleheader of sessions on Friday in Top Qualifying were incredible, bringing the action in spades. As tradition dictates, the fans come right up close and personal with their heroes as tradition dictates, on the side of the track, watching them go by at fairly reasonable speeds on the formation lap, the recon lap. One of the fan favorite cars on this grid is the diminutive Dacia Logan sedan. This is the #118 car, one of four entries in the SP3 category, being shared by another all-German driver lineup of Thomas Geile, Oliver Kriese, Michael Lachmeyer, and Maximilian Weissermel.
The Dacia Logan is going up against an old favorite, the revised, rebuilt 1980s Opel Manta (Flying Fox) GT, car #121, with the fox tail on the aerial antenna on the roof. This is a car the Nurburgring fans love! It is entered by four German drivers including former overall winning team boss for the factory Opel DTM team Volker Strycek, Hans-Olaf Beckmann, Peter Hass, and Jurgen Schulten. Also in the SP3 ranks are the two Toyota Corolla Altis GT N24 sedans for Toyota Gazoo Racing Team Thailand. Car #119, the all Thai lineup of Nattavude Charoensukhawatana, Nattapog Hortongkum, Manat Kulapalanont, and Suttipong Smittachartch.
The sister #120 car has two more Thai drivers, Grant Supaphongs, and Kris Vasuratna, sharing with Chen Jian Hong of Taiwan and Naoki Kawamura of Japan. A Mercedes Benz front row lockout. The field is formed up behind the Audi safety car. Everything possible. Every car shiny and spectacular as the red lights go out and the 51st 24 Hours of the Nurburgring is go! David Pittard starting the #30 Frikadelli Racing Team Ferrari 296 GT3 is making his intent clear, going for the lead around the Green Hell liveried #3 Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo for Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed. Lamborghini, Mercedes-AMG, and Ferrari squeeze through the first turn.
The big boys and the big toys of the SP9 (GT3) class are here to do battle once again on the Nurburgring as they have now for many, many years. The slippery, aerodynamic shape of the new Ferrari 296 has a clear advantage over the rest of the GT3 contenders down the Dottinger Hohe, the long straightaway on the Nordschleife towards the very end of the lap. In contention early on, the #4 Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein Mercedes AMG GT3 driven at the start by Raffaele Marciello in a trio of Swiss licensed and Swiss born drivers.
Marciello is Italian, domiciled in Switzerland, sharing alongside Philip Ellis, and Edorardo "Edo" Mortara. It remains to be seen, as Mortara is on standby, if he will be used during the race. Philip Ellis has been under the weather all weekend and if he feels unwell then the team will call in "Edo" to drive. Marciello's AMG Mercedes, the #4 Bilstein car has special paint on it, an actual paintjob for this race. Those are not graphics wrapped over the car. That is yellow and light blue paint on that Mercedes-AMG GT3.
For a while it is a battle, look, between two AMG Mercedes' as the #3 Green Hell liveried AMG Team GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maro Engel is making his move. Engel sharing with Andorran domiciled Frenchman Jules Gounon and with Spaniard Daniel Juncadella. So, just from these two cars we can see the depth of the Mercedes-AMG factory roster and all their bullets are in the gun for this race, for the biggest race of the year at the Nurburgring, the 24 hour classic. Don't count out the other AMG Team GetSpeed Mercedes AMG GT3, the #2 car. This is the entry driven by Adam Christodoulou of England, and German stars Maximilian Gotz, and Fabian Schiller.
Our buddy and Radio Show Limited commentator, former single seater and endurance sports car driver Jonny Palmer, called these three cars the traffic light AMG's and he's not wrong. #2 in red, #3 in green, and #4 in yellow. Christopher Haase in the #39 Audi Sport Team Land Audi R8 LMS Evo II. takes evasive action to avoid a spinning Porsche going up the hill. Audi also getting into the spirit of putting retro throwback liveries on their cars for the celebration of 40 years of Audi Sport Customer Racing and the #39 car had the white, yellow, red, black, and silver of the Audi Quattro Group B rally cars, the fire breathing monsters that dominated the World Rally Championship for the first portion of the 1980s.
Haase sharing the #39 car alongside fellow German Audi veteran Christopher Mies and the Swiss driver Patric Niederhauser. Watch out too for the two Falken Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R's particularly car #44 driven in the early stages by Germany's Nico Menzel sharing with countryman Tim Heinemann, Austrian Porsche specialist Martin Ragginger, and Sweden's Joel Eriksson. Unfortunately for the Porsche teams, as we watch Nico Menzel fighting his way through the legendary Carousel (Karrusel) turn here at the Nordschleife, the new 992 model 911 GT3R is just not up to snuff yet for the long distance races like this one.
We'll have to see how they do as this motor race continues. We are not sure of the relevance yet of the sister Falken Tires Porsche 911 GT3R, car #33. This one in the hands of the trio of Klaus Bachler of Austria, German Sven Muller, and Belgian driver Alessio Picariello. We'll keep tabs on both Falken Tire Porsche's for you if we can. Early doors, we all wondered will the Ferrari 296 last? Will it remain competitive? Will it remain reliable? Will it last the whole race distance? Over the Flugplatz turn, (Flying Place), we can see, in the early hours of Saturday running, one of the Porsche 911 GT3R's perhaps, losing an undertray or running over a large chunk of bodywork on the road.
Hopefully the marshals were able to take care of that one. Remember, without the marshals, we cannot go racing. In the United States, they wear white uniforms. In Europe and the rest of the world, they wear orange uniforms. But, no matter the color of the uniform, they have the same job, and without them, we cannot go motor racing. We owe these marshals our gratitude and respect. They volunteer their time to do this. They don't get paid. They are there because they love the sport. For that, we are grateful. Early in the race, pit stop time for the SP9 cars and the stealth black Lamborghini Huracan GT3 is the car to win the race off pit lane.
This is the #27 Abt Sportsline Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo 2 shared by an all-star quartet of drivers. South African's Kelvin van der Linde and Jordan Pepper alongside Marco Mapelli from Italy and Danish driver Nicki Thiim who, it has to be said, has been an Aston Martin specialist in GT racing for many years now but has to be equally at home at the wheel of the Lamborghini. We also continue to talk about Ferrari. So far in this race, the new 296 has not missed a beat yet. A good battle raged early on in SP9 between the #2 red GetSpeed Mercedes, the Christodoulou/Gotz/Schiller car, and the legendary #911 "Grello" (green and yellow) Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R of Michael Christensen of Denmark, Frenchmen Kevin Estre and Fred Makowiecki, and Austrian Thomas Preining.
As the Ferrari boys continued to avoid drama early, (we are really going to be telling more of their story as the race continues), we also see a battle here, look, between Porsche and Audi. This is the #33 Falken Porsche of Klaus Bachler being chased hard again by one of the retro liveried factory Audi's. That is the aforementioned #39 car. Oh dear! At one point in the twilight, Bachler loses it, spinning off right in front of one of the major SP10 (GT4) contenders. This is the #47 KCMG Toyota GR Supra GT4 Evo being shared by the trio of Australian Josh Burdon, Italian Edoardo Liberati, and Estonian driver Martin Rump.
Bachler whips around and does a complete 360! Holy smokes! Mr. Toad's wild ride right there, look. Drama's later on for the stealth black Lamborghini that we were just speaking about! Commentators' curse strikes again! A massive puncture for Kelvin van der Linde aboard the #27 and he would be in limp home mode on the majority of the Nordschleife which is scary business because of the long lap but also because of the undulations on the road up hill and down dale. Then, it was time for the tale of woe for Manthey Porsche! The "Grello" Porsche spins off the road right in front of a couple of the Audi's and plows backwards... ker-runch!, right into the tire barriers!
Massive damage to the Manthey EMA Porsche! Could they suffer a figurative snakebite again at this race? It seems to be the case. The Nurburgring, the Green Hell, doth unleash it's venom. Local media around the Nurburgring area here in Germany were filling the sports pages with news of Manthey EMA and their legendary record here in this race but in 2023 once again it perhaps has come to naught for that effort. We will also keep a close eye on the seven car TCR field and especially a couple of the Hyundai factory teams from South Korea who have two Elantra N TCR models.
The first is the #830 for a European trio of drivers including German's Marc Basseng and Manuel Lauck sharing with Spaniard Mikel Azcona, while the second car on this team is spearheaded entirely by Hyundai's American factory drivers from their two car team at Bryan Herta Autosport in IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge in the TCR class here in the United States. Car #831 has the all-American quartet of some familiar names if you watch the Pilot Challenge events regularly. Mason Filippi, Harry Gottsacker, Taylor Hagler, and Michael Lewis.
Meanwhile, in SP9, all the Porsche's were quite out of sorts for this race as we have seen so far before dark. Balance of Performance changes by the ADAC, the German governing body that sanctions this event, the German automobile club, have just not benefitted the boys from Stuttgart at all. The "traffic light" Mercedes trio turned the signal to amber for a wee while with the #4 heading that queue, the Ellis/Mortara/Marciello/Stolz entry. Another car we are seeing come into the picture is the BMW Junior Team with the #72 BMW M4 GT3.
This is the trio of some familiar names we have seen racing for BMW in GT3 cars in Europe and other parts of the world as of late. Britain's Dan Harper, Germany's Max Hesse, and American driver Neil Verhagen. The trio would have their plan for the overnight hours as we see the campfires and barbecues beginning to burn. The fans are having a good old time at the Nordschleife tonight, watching the race, eating sausages and schnitzel, and drinking some fine German beer. What's the saying? Eat, drink, and be merry. Well, the fans at the Nurburgring personify that to a T.
BMW Junior Team have a plan and hope it will work out. They are letting Dan Harper and Max Hesse do all the heavy lifting overnight, and saving Neil Verhagen for the morning for the run to the checkered flag, letting him get some rest so he is fresh and raring to go for the final push to the finish. Will this strategy work? Stay tuned and you will certainly find out. Big damage in the evening for the #535 car that has gone off the road and the whole left front corner on that BMW sedan is catawampus. That is the #535 Manheller Racing car. The last car listed in the VT2 division under the VTH classification.
This is the Manheller Racing BMW 328i Racing shared by German drivers Maximilian von Gortz, team owner and driver Marcel Manheller, and Martin Owen, alongside Japanese driver Yutaka Seki. It seems to be game over for the Manheller Racing BMW sedan. More off roading and this is why the track limits on the Nordschleife are where the grass is on the outside of the circuit. You don't have track limits. If you get it wrong, you suffer dire consequences. That was a silver Mercedes along with another white and navy blue Mercedes racing each other, and no, I did not catch the number or driver of either one of them.
Massive damage too for one of the more stock BMW's. That is a yellow and green painted BMW M4 GT4 I think, clattering the Armco. We are still wondering about the #72 BMW and Dan Harper's escapades. Dan Harper was having issues with the car but early on Sunday morning in the blue of predawn light here at the Nordschleife, Max Hesse at the wheel of the #72 BMW Junior Team BMW M4 GT3, there was clearly a significant parts failure that caused Max Hesse to be forced to bring the car into the lane and the garage for it to be diagnosed and fixed. In replay, we can see from Sven Mueller's onboard camera in the #33 Falken Porsche, that spin for the navy blue Mercedes I was describing a wee while ago.
The driver takes evasive action to get around the stricken BMW M4 GT4 and loses control! Mueller is a lucky, lucky luck boy to get through that shemozzle unharmed. Flat left rear tire in the twilight for car #109. Having a Captain Cook at me entry list to see who that bloke is. That is the MSC Sinzig e.V im ADAC entry. The Audi TTS of the all-German quartet of Arndt Hallmans, Wolfgang Haugg, Peter Muggianu, and Roland Waschkau with the flat left rear tire. You have to pay attention to what happens to a race car in the last couple of hours because a problem might not bite until later, as I am paraphrasing Mr. Jonny Palmer.
Sunset at the Nordschleife and now we get down to the night racing action at just before 9:20 P.M. At this time we see trouble in paradise for the #30 Frikadelli Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 trundling down the pit lane with a puncture. Bad luck for the puncture but good in the sense that it was so close to the pit lane. A gorgeous sunset over the Nurburg castle on this Saturday evening. The Ferris wheel at the carnival lit up fluorescently in eyepopping hues of green, pink, and orange neon light. The night plays tricks on the Nordschleife. Spectacular images and unwavering speed.
The #2 GetSpeed Mercedes AMG GT3 goes off the road yet another time. The nighttime can mess with a driver's accuracy and concentration. Small mistakes equal big consequences as the fans continue to revel. This is a motor race but it is an event. It is a party. There is something for everybody here at the Nurburgring. Through the darkness the cars flash, and all through the night we were on record pace and record distance. Would we see the distance record broken at the end of the 24 hours? Read on to find out more. Our story of the 2023 Nurburgring 24 Hour race is far from over.
We would need to complete 6.66 laps an hour for 24 hours to meet and surpass the distance record. Maro Engel at the top of the shop makes a tiny mistake aboard the Green Hell liveried Mercedes AMG GT3, car #3 for Mercedes AMG Team GetSpeed he is sharing with Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella. He tries to pass one of the Porsche Cayman's, clatters it, and goes off the road. He tags the #85 Porsche Cayman that does not have an official team name on my entry list roster, and suffers big damage! This Cayman is being shared by two Brits (James Breakell and Harley Haughton), and two New Zealanders, Grant Dalton and Grant Woolford.
A tiny mistake breaks the shock absorber and they thought they could get back out there and pound around, soldiering on around the Nordschleife for a wee while before cooler heads prevailed and the Green Hell liveried #3 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 was withdrawn from the motor race for safety reasons. Turn in the driver logbook and come back and try again next year, boys. Onward into the dark of night, the #30 Frikadelli Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 continues running like a train. Nothing has changed and that makes the boys and girls at Frikadelli Racing a happy, happy bunch of mechanics. If anything the Ferrari continues to get faster as David Pittard from England, Earl Bamber from New Zealand, Dutchman Nicky Catsburg, and German Felipe Fernandez Laser continue putting the new car through it's paces here at the Nordschleife.
We will see the other Ferrari 296 GT3 entered in the race beginning to turn it on towards daybreak as there's a very close shave in the darkness between Ricardo Feller in the #1 Audi Sport Team Scherer PHX Aud8 R8 LMS Evo II and one of the two Rowe Racing BMW M4 GT3's. The #98 car I think, was the faster of the two, with Belgian's Maxime Martin and Dries Vanthoor, South African Sheldon van der Linde, and Germany's Marco Wittman. The sister #99 is a car we've not seen much of so far in the hands of Austrian Phillip Eng, Brazilian Augusto Farfus, American Connor De Philippi, and Brit Nick Yelloly.
Sheldon van der Linde brings the #98 Rowe BMW to the pit lane for scheduled service and we also see the #30 Frikadelli Racing Team Ferrari in the box for service as in the lane here at the Nurburgring the teams must save space by rotating the cars sideways at 45 degrees to pit them with a portable air jack canister unit and battery operated wheel guns which are basically an electric drill with a battery pack that may even have slightly more torque that the giant honking rattle guns we see connected directly to the compressed air lines in other sports car championships with the capability of removing and reinstalling the single lug nut, and we even see those now on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit with the Generation 7 car.
David Pittard, the Englishman, given a massive responsibility at Frikadelli to qualify the Ferrari and to start the race as we begin to see more woe and pain for Audi and the retirement of the possibly contending #5 entry for Scherer Sport PHX. This is the car of German veteran Frank Stippler, his countryman Vincent Kolb, and two stars for Cadillac in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship who just raced last weekend at the Laguna Seca IMSA round, Renger van der Zande, the Dutchman for Chip Ganassi Racing, and Alexander Sims, concurrently a driver with my friends at Action Express Racing, who will both be going to the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a few weeks for their respective teams.
They teamed up in the Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS Evo II at the Nurburgring but it has all come to naught. There was fluid down on the Grand Prix track portion of the Nurburgring before you get to the Nordschleife and I think it was Frank Stippler who lost control, spinning on said fluid and clattering the wall causing irreparable damage. Former winners of this race as a team, several times, were out. Game over. The blue hue of dawn fingers the skies above the Nurburging. Earl Bamber's double stint in the middle of the night aboard the #30 Frikadelli Ferrari was absolutely stunning!
Bamber was used as a driver resource very well to play into the hands of the Frikadelli Racing strategy for the later stages of the race as in the early morning before dawn we see one of the Dodge Dakota course trucks here, spreading speedy dry all over the circuit! It looks like someone's engine has gone bang. No. That's not an engine going bang. It is just the speedy dry, the cement dust, used to sop up oil on the road. Earl Bamber, during his double stints in the Frikadelli Ferrari 296, ekes out a gap of a couple minutes over the SP9 competition. This is trhough a two and a half hour driving stint for Bamber.
Daybreak on Sunday, and once again, don't go anyplace. Do not touch that dial or run to the fridge yet. There's plenty more to come. Plenty more racing to do and plenty more stories to tell here at the Nurburgring. There's a little fog out there but nothing too bad like the race stoppages we have seen for dense fog and torrential rain in the recent past. This fog was actually contained only to the Grand Prix circuit section and it was clear as a bell on the Nordschleife. If fog had blanketed the Nordschleife, you can bet Deutschmarks to fastnacht's that we'd have a red flag and a race stoppage. Thankfully that's not the case this year.
Was this the perfect race in terms of weather on the Nordschleife? It very well could be. A huge brake or oil fire on one of the SP10 (GT4) class Toyota Supra's! That is one of the two Toyo Tires with Ring Racing Toyota Supra GT4's and it's on FiYah!... that modern colloquialism for fire, strikes again! Cannot tell which one it is. It is either the #70 of Marc Hennerici, Takayuki Kinoshita, Tim Sandtler, and Heiko Tonges, (three German drivers and a Japanese driver in the case of Kinoshita), or the #71. The #71 Ring Racing, Toyo Tires Toyota Supra is the car of Lance David Arnold (better known as a Porsche specialist at the Nurburgring), Andreas Gulden, and Michael Tischnar, three more German drivers, with, again, Kinoshita of Japan, also listed in that lineup.
One of the Hyundai Elantra N TCR's gets spun around but continues on it's way. A relatively small attrition rate in this year's N24. People have had their problems as far as we have gone but many cars are still circulating, still pounding around The Green Hell. This means, like it or not if you're a driver, traffic is always an issue. It is inescapable. It can help you. It can hinder you. Traffic giveth. Traffic taketh away. As we approach the final third of this motor racing it is glaringly apparent the battle is going to come down to the Ferrari's and the BMW's, the 296 GT3's vs. the M4 GT3's, plus a handful of Mercedes AMG GT3's as well.
The battle really became a two horse race (no pun intended) in the closing moments of the motor race if not the closing hour between David Pittard in the Frikadelli Racing Ferrari and the Rowe Racing BMW in the hands of Maxime Martin. Klaus Abbelen, team boss and owner at Frikadelli has to find a place to hide outside the garage or at the back of it. He cannot take the strain. Believe me, if I were a team boss in that position about to earn victory in one of the biggest endurance races on the planet, I couldn't take the stress either! Give me a cold drink and I'll casually sip it at the back of the garage until the race is done and dusted.
It is becoming clear as day that Frikadelli Racing and Rinaldi Racing, and Ferrari, have had a wonderfully managed motor race and they are going to come home victorious at the Nordschleife for the first time! For all that Ferrari has done since Il Commendatore, Enzo Ferrari, founded the company in 1947, with their wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, 12 Hours of Sebring, 24 Hours of Daytona, and all their Formula 1 successes with wins and championships from many, many drivers over the years, Ferrari is going to notch their first ever victory in GT3 competition at the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring!
Coming out of the final turn at Hohenrein, off the Tiergarten for the final time, Ferrari are going to break a two decade stranglehold by German brands on their home turf and become the first non German winner of the Nurburgring 24 since Zakspeed scored the second of their two wins with a Chrysler Viper here at the Nurburgring in 2002. To be fair that was a German team, but winning back-to-back races with an American car, the venerable Chrysler (Dodge) Viper. A new distance record is achieved by the Ferrari team at 162 laps! Frikadelli and Abbelen win for the man from around the corner and up the hill. Forza Ferrari! Forza Frikadelli! They win the big race on Ascension Day weekend.
#30 Bamber/Catsburg/Fernandez Laser/Pittard Frikadelli Racing Team Ferrari 296 GT3
So ends another wonderful edition of the Nurburgring 24 Hours with The Prancing Horse, for the first time, on the top step of the podium at The Green Hell! Just amazing! We'll see you next year for the next edition of this wonderful race. Auf wiedersehen for now, everyone. Take care. We'll see you next time.
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