Mercedes claims first Nurburgring 24 Hours victory
Mercedes claimed its first Nurburgring 24 Hours victory in one of the most dramatic races in the history of the event
Five-time DTM champion Bernd Schneider and his team-mates Sean Edwards, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Nicki Thiim steered their Black Falcon-entered SLS to victory, just 2m39s in front of the hard-charging Maxime Martin in the Marc VDS-entered BMW Z4.
Belgian Martin was one of the stars of the race, the BMW works driver lapping more than 20 seconds a lap faster than his opponents at times during the race, which was hit by rain several times.
He could not stop the Black Falcon entry however, even after Schneider lost over two minutes on Monday morning when he was pushing too hard while gaining huge amounts of time in fifth position. It was Schneider's first finish in the 24-hour classic.
Both ROWE Mercedes succumbed to the Marc VDS BMW in an intense finish, but they still finished ahead of the first Audi R8, driven by last year's winners Markus Winkelhock, Marcel Fassler, Frank Stippler, and Mike Rockenfeller, who travelled to Germany for the race after winning the DTM event at Brands Hatch.
The battered BMW of Dirk Adorf, Claudia Hurtgen, Jens Klinmann and Martin Tomczyk came in sixth, while the sister Z4 posted an early retirement when Uwe Alzen hit team-mate Hurtgen while approaching a yellow-flag zone at the Schwedekreuz, destroying the car's steering beyond repair in the process.
Best of the Porsche entries was multiple winner Manthey Racing in a comparatively lowly seventh.
The race had to be interrupted due to torrential rain for more than nine hours.
It was not the first stoppage due to bad weather, however, as the event had been interrupted five times before, most recently in 1994 and 2007.
Previous article
Stippler gives Audi pole for Nurburgring 24 Hours
Next article
Silverstone BES: Aston Martin adds factory entry
About this article
| Series | GT |
| Author | Gregor Messer |
How Ferrari's F1 protege became a Mercedes GT prodigy
Raffaele Marciello once appeared to be Ferrari’s next Italian F1 star, but is now under the pay of its German arch-rival in GTs – and he’s very happy with his life
Why GTE's future is a conundrum with no easy answers
The convergence between the World Endurance Championship and IMSA over LMDh regulations offers a bright future for sportscar racing, but the imminent demise of IMSA's GT Le Mans class creates wider issues to which no catch-all solution exists
How Tandy joined an exclusive club of endurance legends
Victory at last year's Spa 24 Hours meant Nick Tandy had completed the unofficial sextuple crown of the world's six biggest endurance races, becoming the first Briton to do so. Ahead of his fresh start with Corvette Racing, he explains how he did it
Why a lost F1 hope is still in demand aged 65
There's a saying among retired folk that life begins at 60, but endurance specialist Alain Ferte has never used the 'R' word. Some 40 years since his crowning glory in F3, he's still a driver in demand and gunning for more 24-hour racing success this weekend
How a BTCC veteran conquered the summit in British GT
After two decades in touring cars, Rob Collard had an uphill battle to unlearn the tools needed to be quick in tin-tops and understand how to hustle a GT3 car. But he did so with aplomb to prevail alongside Sandy Mitchell amid a challenging year for the series
The high-power solution to counter a dying breed
SRO boss Stephane Ratel was worried about the disappearance of the amateur - or 'gentleman' - drivers who used to be the bedrock of GT3. So he invented a new category that brings back a familiar name from the past
The Dutch oddity that was too niche for its own good
Despite (briefly) having its own F1 arm, Spyker's period in international sportscar racing was spent mostly propping up the grid. Its C8 Laviolette GT2-R stands as one of the last underfunded factory GT efforts that never got a helping hand from BOP
How a "fragile s***box" conquered a sportscar classic
It was rare to see anything other than a Ferrari or a Porsche winning GT2 races in the mid-2000s, but TVR's victory in the 2005 Spa 1000km was all the more remarkable given it first had to last the full six hours
