BMW Motorsport is the winner of the eventful 38th edition of the ADAC Zurich 24h Race. At the end of 154 laps at the 25.378-kilometre circuit, Jörg Müller (Germany), Augusto Farfus (Brazil), Uwe Alzen (Germany) and Pedro Lamy (Portugal) secured the win in front of 220,000 spectators. With their BMW M3 GT2, they gave the Bavarian manufacturer the first 24h Race win since 2005. At the end of the day, they crossed the finish line 3:54.1 minutes ahead of the squad Farnbacher Racing. The independent team was represented by Dominik Farnbacher (Germany), Allan Simonsen (Australia), Leh Keen (USA) and Marco Seefried (Germany) who raced a Ferrari F430 GTC in the legendary endurance-racing event. Following the thrilling race that featured a total of 12 race leaders, Dennis Rostek (Germany), Luca Ludwig (Germany), Marc Bronzel (Germany) and Markus Winkelhock (Germany) finished third, with their Audi R8 LMS entered by Phoenix Racing. Please find all the important facts around the 38th edition of the Nordschleife classic in the World Wide Web at www.24h-rennen.de.
Even the victorious BMW works squad had to tremble on the way to their race win. During the course of the race, many temporary leaders dropped back or were forced into early retirement and with two more hours to go, the works M3 that delivered consistently fast lap times without encountering any major problems, took the lead. But suddenly, Jörg Müller who drove the squad’s penultimate stint, informed the team that there were gearbox noises. The noise, however, didn’t turn into a real problem. “In the closing stages of such a race you tend to hear the weirdest things,” grinned his team-mate Dirk Adorf. “So, you just have to take it easy and be optimistic. This result is incredible. Following the practice, the qualifying sessions and the first hours of the race, nobody would have believed that we could make it.” Also happy with the result was the Farnbacher team. Following their surprising provisional pole in the first qualifying session, the team from Lichtenau couldn’t shine in the opening stages of the race but with extreme consistency, they worked their way up step by step to finish second, in the end.”This result represents a fantastic success for our team,” beamed Team Principal Dominik Farnbacher. “We found a good set-up and the Nordschleife suited our exotic Ferrari really well.” And the third-placed squad also was delighted with its result. “That’s incredible! Having made it to the podium here feels just fantastic,” beamed Luca Ludwig. With this success, the son of ‘Nürburgring King’ Klaus Ludwig followed the footstep of his father who celebrated three 24h Race wins at his favourite circuit, in his career. “We lost some time in the opening stages but then we got going better and better and battled our way up to third with a lot of fighting spirit. Throughout the race, our Audi R8 didn’t encounter single problem and the Phoenix crew worked perfectly during every single stop. A fantastic experience at a unique circuit.”
Porsche series stopped
The 220,000 motor-racing enthusiasts around the Nordschleife witnessed one of the most turbulent 24h races of the recent past – with a great number of favourites having to retire early. With their Porsche GT3-R, the winners of the 2009 edition, Marc Lieb, Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Marcel Tiemann, took the lead right away and defended it in superior style throughout the first seven hours. Then, however, they were hit by another competitor – with no fault of their own – and their race was over. Temporarily, Team Principal Olaf Manthey who had secured four consecutive wins in the previous four 24h Races, could take comfort in the fact that the hybrid GT3-3 – also entered by him – took the lead. But with just two more hours to go, this car also was forced into retirement. At the same time, the Audi camp had to cope with a huge dose of bad luck, too: two top teams – Abt Sportsline and local heroes Phoenix Racing – had initiated Audi-customer involvements with the Audi R8 LMS and proved to be among the dominating teams for a long time. Both teams temporarily held the lead and four of the five cars entered by them battled it out at the front end of the field. But nearly all of them lost out dearly due to accidents or technical failures. In the end, the Phoenix Audi R8 LMS that finished third remained the only Audi spearhead.
