In the early stages, Ferrari and Aston Martin dominated the action in the lead of the 63rd ADAC ACAS Cup race. In the final part of the sixth race of the Nürburgring Endurance Series then – the first of two heats of the 12h Nürburgring – the top dogs prevailed. The victory went to Christian Krognes and Jakub ‘Kuba’ Giermaziak in the BMW M4 GT3. The duo from Walkenhorst Motorsport celebrated their third success of the season and won ahead of Klaus Bachler and David Pittard in the Porsche 911 GT3 R from Falken Motorsports. The sister car – driven by Dennis Fetzer and Martin Ragginger – completed the top three positions. 60,000 spectators followed the race on site. Between practice and the race, the Red Bull Formula Nürburgring made history with Sebastian Vettel, David Coulthard and Mathias Lauda, among others, chasing through the Green Hell in different Formula 1 cars. As many as 35,000 spectators followed the race day around the Red Bull event live in the sold-out Müllenbachschleife.
“The last laps of the race in the darkness were full of atmosphere and I really enjoyed them,” said Kuba after the race. “With Christian, the right man was in the cockpit at the right time, so we were able to drive home the victory sovereignly. With him as a team mate, there is nothing to worry about.” At the finish, the Walkenhorst-BMW’s lead over the runners-up was 1:26.623 minutes. “I enjoy every lap at the Nürburgring in the dark. That is always something special,” said Krognes. “We had the best package today and were able to push hard.”
“Especially in the early stages, the race was extremely tough because the temperatures had been very high,” admitted Ragginger. “Nevertheless, we had a cool race, even though we couldn’t get really close to the BMW at the front. For me it was the first race in the Green Hell after the 24h Race and I had a lot of fun, especially as our team mates in third place completed the very good result for Falken Motorsports.” Ragginger added: “We were fighting all the way to the end. It was a tough race with a lot of action on the track. It was cool to see our sister car fighting for the win.”
Behind the leading trio, Nicki Thiim, Phil and Ben Dörr in the Dörr Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT3, who had been fighting for the lead in the early stages of the race, finished fourth. Fifth place went to Patrick Assenheimer, Marcel Marchewicz, Colin Caresani and Philip Ellis in the Schnitzelalm Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. In the qualifying, Stefan Aust took pole position in the Ferrari 296 GT3 from racing one. In the race, he ended up cheering on the victory in the Pro-Am classification together with Christian Kohlhaas, ‘Jacob Schell’ and Luca Ludwig.
Victory in the Cup 2 class for Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars went to Nico Otto and Benjamin Leuchter from Max Kruse Racing. In the Cup 3 for identical Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 CS cars, Heiko Eichenberg, Patrik Grütter and Fabio Grosse celebrated victory for SRS Team Sorg Rennsport. First place in the class for alternative fuels went to Four Motors Bioconcept Car. The Bio-Porsche 911 GT3 Cup was driven by Smudo, ‘Tom’, Henrik Bollerslev, and Thomas Kiefer.
After their sixth class win in the sixth race, Daniel Zils, Oskar Sandberg and Philipp Leisen in the BMW 330i of the Adrenalin Motorsport Team Motec now are the sole leaders of the championship. Their team mates Yannick Fübrich, Sven Markert and Nils Steinberg suffered their first retirement in the sister car from the BMW M240i Racing Cup class.
The seventh round of the Nürburgring Endurance Series will take place already tomorrow. The 62nd ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen not only takes place on the usual NLS variant of the Nürburgring Sprint Track and the Nordschleife, but it also follows the usual schedule with qualifying from 08:30 to 10 a.m. and the race will start at 12 noon. After some of the protagonists who should be at the start tomorrow were left on the track today due to technical failures and accidents, the lights will be on for a long time in some of the pits during the night. As long as there is a chance to somehow get the damaged cars to the start, the mechanics will fight for a start at NLS7.
