Nurburgring 24 Hours – Friday Morning Impressions

After setting up the kit required to bring Radio Le Mans to the world, it was time to take a stroll in the Nurburgring paddock with fellow ‘Ring 24 virgin Jim Roller.

Oh my god! Anyone used to any normal racing experience should be prepared for something completely different – 5-6 cars per garage, teams, drivers, media, hangers on. The Nurburgring pit lane has more people in it than an average football league crowd.

And the sheer size of the entry this weekend has to be seen to be believed.

The RLM team was woken this morning as over 100 cars filtered out to practice for one support race: the one make series, including Clios, Minis and Fiestas, joined an eclectic mix of saloons and GT cars on track. 

Next up was practice for the 24 hours itself, almost 220 cars on track, from the top class Porsches, Aston Martins, Vipers and BMWs through to the ‘tiddlers’ Clios, Suzukis, Hondas and an old Rover Mini - and then on to some of the oddities that this race is so well known for, including an Opel Astra estate as well as the much loved Derichs Rennwagen Mercedes and Audi.

In the Manthey pit the star studded driver squad was looking forward to a rather different race than they are normally used to – Timo Bernhard recounted his first run here some years ago when he stood on the brakes after encountering a sudden bank of ‘fog’.

It was only when he entered the mist that he realised that it was a huge cloud of smoke from the trackside barbecues!

Romain Dumas meanwhile felt that perhaps the greatest challenge of this race is not the distance, nor even the famous ‘Green Hell’ of the Nordschleife, but rather the traffic.

“You are often coming across the smaller cars and when you do they are very likely to be battling with each other, perhaps 10 or 15 of them at a time.  You have to be so careful, they are involved in their own race and it can finish yours.”

First Qualifying saw Klaus Ludwig in the Phoenix Racing Aston Martin DBRS9 grab provisional pole with a lap in 8:46.052, 2.4 seconds ahead of the Manthey Racing Porsche 911 RSR.

The Kruse Motorsport BMW Z4M looked to be in trouble in the morning session and has apparently left the paddock.

Finally for the morning a ‘very disappointing’ 150 cars or so took the start for the ‘Oldtimers’ endurance race: a mix of the obvious (Porsche 911s and BMW 2002s / M3s) and the rather less common – Simcas, Autobianchis, NSUs etc., together with a gloriously out of place big Mercedes saloon in baby blue.

Great stuff!
GG

First Qualifying – Top Ten 

1 #7 Phoenix Racing Aston Martin – 8:46.052

2 #1 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RSR – 8:48.456

3 #3 Zakspeed Dodge Viper GTSR – 8:51.066

4 #25 Land Motorsport Porsche GT3 RSR – 8:55.881

5 #50 Motorsport Arena – BMW Z4M – 9:03.181

6 #2 Hankook Racing – Porsche Cayman – 9:04.693

7 #43 Konrad Motorsport – Porsche 997 GT3 RSR – 9:05.097

8 #29 Paragon AG – Porsche 997 RSR – 9:06.739

9 #99 Porsche Cayman RS – 9:08.999
10 #18 Raeder Motorsport – Laborghini Gallardo – 9:12.081