The fourth round of the ADAC Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie was not for the faint-hearted. The Saturday race of the ADAC 24h Nürburgring Qualifiers demanded everything from man and machine in the Green Hell, with heavy rain at times. The race lasted four hours and continued into the darkness. Patric Niederhauser and Laurens Vanthoor kept their cool and were waved across the finish line as winners in the Porsche 911 GT3 R from Scherer Sport PHX. Their lead over the second-placed Manthey EMA 911 with Kévin Estre and Patrick Pilet was 2:29.403 minutes. Fabian Schiller, who shared the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed with Luca Stolz and Maxime Martin, gave himself a nice birthday present with third place.
With conditions still dry on Saturday morning, Estre secured pole position with ‘Grello’. “I had a clear lap and no traffic. That doesn’t happen very often on the Nordschleife,” said the veteran driver, who already had a premonition of how the weather would develop over the course of the day: “A little rain wouldn’t be bad.” The Porsche factory driver was right. Rain set in before the start and added extra excitement to the first half of the race. One of the prominent victims of the conditions was Julien Andlauer, who lost control of the Falken Porsche after a few laps in the Hohenrain chicane and crashed into the track barrier.
One driver who benefited from the challenging conditions in the first hour of the race was veteran Frank Stippler, who started the JUTA Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II from sixth position and brought it to the front of the field. “In the increasingly heavy rain, I kept aquaplaning, with very fast and rough digital traction loss. It was difficult to control,” admitted Stippler. “There were surprisingly few incidents. It was a challenge just to finish the race.” In the end, he finished eighth together with ‘SELV’, Elia Erhart, and Alexey Veremenko.
In the final stages, the eventual winners established themselves at the front of the field and Niederhauser didn’t let anything slip at the end. “Sometimes I ask myself what I’m doing here instead of just lying comfortably on the sofa for the weekend,” grinned Vanthoor. “There are no more difficult conditions in motorsport. At the start, you couldn’t see anything, then it was okay for a while, but then aquaplaning set in. It was completely crazy. I wet my pants three or four times per lap, but otherwise everything was fine.“ Estre also struggled with the conditions: ”Everyone tried something with the tire pressure at the start – and for us, it backfired. In the first, very short stint, we simply had the wrong pressure. I didn’t stand a chance. The second section went better, I was able to overtake the GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG and close the gap to the front a little. Nevertheless, it was very wet and we had aquaplaning. You couldn’t even drive at full speed on the straights because you couldn’t see anything and couldn’t get the power onto the track. Today, we realized once again that the Green Hell doesn’t bear its name without reason.” Martin, who is considered a proven ‘Rainman’ on the Nordschleife, also paid tribute: “It was very difficult to keep the tires in the working window today. Some cars were really fast; they seem to cope better with it. I hope we don’t have these conditions in the 24-hour race.”
Hyundai factory team finishes in the top 10
On a slippery track, a front-wheel drive vehicle showed off its full performance: Manuel Lauck, Marc Basseng, Mikel Azcona, and Christer Jöns not only won the TCR class, but also finished ninth overall. “The most important thing today was to stay on the track,” said Jöns, who became NLS champion in 2009. He made his debut in the Hyundai Elantra N TCR in the qualifiers. “I drove the first laps in dry conditions this morning and felt comfortable right away. In the race, I also had to contend with aquaplaning, but there are a few things that play into the hands of our front-wheel drive car in these conditions.”
No changes at the top of the table
The NLS leaders put in an exceptional performance. Tim Scheerbarth and Arne Hoffmeister, together with David Jahn, dominated the Cup 2 class in the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup from Mühlner Motorsport. The runners-up also won their respective classes: last year’s champion Sven Markert and Kevin Wambach, who drove the BMW M240i Racing from Adrenalin Motorsport Team Mainhattan Wheels in the VT2-RWD together with Adrian Rziczny, as well as Nick Wüstenhagen, Ranko Mijatovic, and Tobias Wahl, who competed in the BMW M4 GT4 from FK Performance Motorsport in the SP8T.
The ADAC 24h Nürburgring Qualifiers will enter their second round tomorrow. On Sunday, the spectacular top qualifying session at 10:40 a.m. will be a highlight, with all GT3 cars competing for their starting positions in individual time trials. The race starts at 1 p.m. Day tickets are available for €25 (children up to and including 12 years of age free of charge) at 24h-rennen.de and at the box office. This gives access to the open grandstands on the Grand Prix circuit, the exclusive spectator areas Brünnchen and Pflanzgarten, as well as the paddock and the starting grid.
