Who to succeed Porsche?

The traditional clash between GT3 big guns will continue at the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring (June 22-23) for the legendary double clock tower of the Green Hell. But like every year, it is the German brands that will be at the heart of the fight, the last victory of a non-German brand dating back to 2002 with the Chrysler Viper – Zakspeed.

Title holder, Porsche will logically aim for the two pass, which would be a first for Weissach since 2008-2009. Manthey Racing will once again be at the forefront of the entry of the new 911 GT3 R, with examples n°1 of Lietz – Makowiecki – Pilet – Tandy and n°911 of Bamber – Christensen – Estre – L. Vanthoor. Olaf Manthey's structure will also operate No. 12 Olsen – Cairoli – Kern – Klohs.

The Porsche clan will also be reinforced by the cars of Frikadelli Racing (with Mathieu Jaminet and Romain Dumas in particular) and that of Falken Motorsports (Martin Ragginger – Dirk Werner – Klaus Bachler – Jörg Bergmeister).

The two main opposition forces in Weissach will be Audi and Mercedes-AMG, with three cars officially supported by the brand with the rings for Team Land, Car Collection and Phoenix Racing, with regulars Markus Winkelhock, Christopher Haase, Dries Vanthoor, Marcel Fässler and René Rast.

The star firm will be mainly represented by Black Falcon (Engel, Stolz, Christodoulou, Buhk, Jäger, Bastian, Buurman…), with Team Mann-Filter (Marciello, Götz…) and GetSpeed ​​Performance (Vautier, Baumann, van der Zande) in support. BMW will arrive, with a victory in the qualifying race with the Walkenhorst Motorsport M6 GT3.

The formation of Hans-Peter Naundorf will logically be one of the favorites with the n°98 of Eng – de Phillippi – Blomqvist – Jensen and n°99 of Catsburg – Wittmann – Edwards – Krohn. Walkenhorst Motorsport, winner at the 24 Hours of Spa in 2018, will mainly rely on the No. 101 of Krognes – Pittard – Ordonez – Yelloly while the M6 ​​– Team Schnitzer will be able to count on the Farfus – Tomczyk – van der Linde – Scheider crew.

Matthieu Vaxivière will be at the start in one of the two Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 – KCMG. Also note the presence on this list of Carlos Tavares, boss of PSA and François Wales, new director of Peugeot Sport, at the wheel of an Opel Astra OPC of the TJ-Racing-Team.

24 2019 Hours of Nürburgring entry list