Audi wins the 24 Hours of Nürburgring

The Green Hell has once again kept all its promises. For its 50th edition, the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring crowned the No. 15 Audi of Team Phoenix driven by Kelvin van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, Frédéric Vervisch and Robin Frijns. More than ever, it was necessary to survive to triumph in the Eifel. Many contenders have indeed bit the dust. Starting with the Porsche n°1 of Manthey Racing (Michael Christensen, Kévin Estre, Frédéric Makowiecki, Laurens Vanthoor). Starting in last position in the SP 9 category due to a penalty received in qualifying, the famous fluorescent green car was forced to retire after three hours of racing following an accident between the two Vanthoor brothers, for the biggest misfortune for the many Grello fans present at the Ring.

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Aston Martin and BMW were also unhappy in this race. The n°90 of TF Sport (Marco Sorensen, Nicki Thiim, David Pittard, Maxime Martin) was impressive on Saturday and started the night at the head of the race. Thiim was nevertheless surprised by a puddle of oil and the British team retired. This could have smiled on the #4 ROWE Racing BMW M3 GT98 (Nicky Catsburg, John Edwards, Shelon van der Linde, Marco Wittman), but it retired two laps later in an accident. The propeller brand was definitely not successful since the ROWE Racing no. 99 (Connor de Phillippi, Philipp Eng, Augusto Farfus, Nick Yelloly) had already experienced such a mishap a little earlier and the no. 20 of Schubert Motorsport (Jesse Kurki-Suonio, Alexander Sims, Jens Klinsmann, Niklas Kruetten), leading the race at dawn on Sunday, was surprised by the beginning rain, allowing the No. 15 Audi to take the lead.

The elements were decidedly in favor of this crew since the rain returned three hours before the deadline would allow them to postpone the Mercedes n°3 (Adan Christodoulou, Maximimilian Goetz, Fabian Schiller), whose tire strategy turned out to be ill-advised, and thus ensuring victory in the German classic. The No. 3 was content with second place ahead of another Mercedes, the No. 4 (Maro Engel, Jules Gounon, Daniel Juncadella).