Nürburgring 24 Hours - Qualifying Report Four Audis Up Front The Nürburgring 24 Hours Qualifying was as always split into two sessions, a four hour night session on Thursday and a two hour session on Friday. On Thursday there was rain all day, so it was clear that the pole would be decided on Friday. As in the free practice a couple of hours before the night qualifying, the Farnbacher Ferrari with Dominik Farnbacher at the wheel was fastest in the session. The Hankook shod Ferrari was able to have a big advantage over the other competitors on the partial wet Nordschleife. Second after Q1 was the Hybrid Porsche ahead of the Mamerow Porsche 997 GT3 R. In Qualifying number two the top teams had the advantage of getting a three minute head start, in order to get at least one clean lap. But just like in previous years the pole position wasn’t decided until the final minute. In the end it was Marco Werner in the Abt Sportsline Audi R8 LMS ending up on top of the timing screens. His time of 8:24.753 minutes was considerably faster than last years pole of Dirk Adorf in the Raeder Ford GT.
Second place was taken by Mike Rockenfeller in the Phoenix Audi ahead of his marque colleague Luca Luhr in the second Abt Audi. To make it a perfect Friday for Audi the Phoenix Audi of Marcel Fässler, Pierre Kaffer, Marc Hennerici and Frank Biela qualified in fourth position. The fastest Porsche was the Haribo Porsche driven by Lance David Arnold, ahead of the Mamerow Porsche. Last year’s winning Manthey Porsche finished seventh overall, the team only doing one lap because of safety concerns. The overnight pole-sitting Farnbacher Ferrari had contact with a slower car during its first flying lap, so no time change can be reported; the team falling back to 46th place.
The race around the clock at the Nürburgring starts on Saturday at 3.00pm local time, with Radio Le Mans providing coverage of the exciting happening in the Eifel mountains. Sören Herweg | 
