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Nurburgring 24 Hours: WRT Audi survives fire to win classic race

Despite a flash fire during a pitstop this morning, there was no stopping the #28 WRT Audi R8 LMS from winning the Nurburgring 24 Hours, ahead of the #25 Marc VDS BMW Z4 that chased it right to the finish.

#28 Audi Sport Team WRT Audi R8 LMS: Christopher Mies, Edward Sandström, Nico Müller, Laurens Vanthoor

#28 Audi Sport Team WRT Audi R8 LMS: Christopher Mies, Edward Sandström, Nico Müller, Laurens Vanthoor

Eric Gilbert

Podium cars: race winner #28 Audi Sport Team WRT Audi R8 LMS, second place #25 Marc VDS Racing BMW Z4 GT3, third place #44 Team Falken Tire Porsche 997 GT3 R
Podium: race winners #28 Audi Sport Team WRT Audi R8 LMS: Christopher Mies, Edward Sandström, Nico Müller, Laurens Vanthoor, second place #25 Marc VDS Racing BMW Z4 GT3: Maxime Martin, Lucas Luhr, Markus Palttala, Richard Westbrook, third place #44 Team F
Race winner #28 Audi Sport Team WRT Audi R8 LMS: Christopher Mies, Edward Sandström, Nico Müller, Laurens Vanthoor celebrates
Podium: race winners #28 Audi Sport Team WRT Audi R8 LMS: Christopher Mies, Edward Sandström, Nico Müller, Laurens Vanthoor, celebrate with Romolo Liebchen, Head of Audi Sport customer racing
#25 Marc VDS Racing BMW Z4 GT3: Maxime Martin, Lucas Luhr, Markus Palttala, Richard Westbrook
#44 Team Falken Tire Porsche 997 GT3 R: Peter Dumbreck, Wolf Henzler, Martin Ragginger, Alexandre Imperatori
#15 Audi Race Experience Audi R8 LMS ultra: Alex Yoong, Frankie Cheng, Marchy Lee, Shaun Thong goes off-track
#5 Black Falcon Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3: Abdulaziz Al Faisal, Hubert Haupt, Yelmer Buurman, Jaap van Lagen
#48 Aston Martin Test Centre Aston Martin V12: Liam Talbot, Florian Kamelger, Peter Cate, Wolfgang S
Damage on the guardrail after the crash of #50 Aston Martin Test Centre Aston Martin GT12
Aftermath of the #50 Aston Martin Test Centre Aston Martin GT12: Chris Harris, Shinichi Katsura, Kazunori Yamauchi, Andreas Gülden crash
#309 Adrenalin Motorsport BMW M235i Racing: Norbert Fischer, Christian Konnerth, Thorsten Wolter, Ch
A course marshal cleans up the track
#74 Getspeed Performance Porsche 997 GT3 Cup: Ulrich Berg, Patrik Kaiser, #53 Gazoo Racing Lexus LFA
Crew repairs the damage on the guardrail after the crash of #50 Aston Martin Test Centre Aston Martin GT12
Race action at Wehrseifen
Pit stop for #25 Marc VDS Racing BMW Z4 GT3: Maxime Martin, Lucas Luhr, Markus Palttala, Richard Westbrook

Audi’s #28 machine – crewed by Christopher Mies, Edward Sandstrom, Nico Muller and Laurens Vanthoor – took control of the race after others fell by the wayside during the night.

Despite a big grassy spin by Muller at the Veedol chicane with five hours to go, which lost 10s, and then a brief pit fire an hour later, the WRT machine stayed out of the reach of the #25 Marc VDS BMW Z4 in the closing hours of the event.

The gap between them and the BMW of Maxime Martin, Lucas Luhr, Markus Palttala and Richard Westbrook was as close as 42s with 1h45m to go. It extended to 54s by the time of the final pitstops with just over an hour remaining.

The gap then went out to over a minute, and although this was closed down in the final hour as Martin pushed right until the end, there were no big late dramas. Martin finished just 40.729s behind Mies in the winning Audi.

The Falken-tyred Porsche 997 of Peter Dumbreck, Wolf Henzler, Martin Ragginger and Alexandre Imperatori produced its best-ever Nurburgring 24 Hours performance to take the final spot on the podium. They completed 155 laps, one less than the two ahead.

The fourth placed #26 Marc VDS BMW Z4, driven by Augusto Farfus, Jorg Muller, Nicky Catsburg and Dirk Adorf, also suffered a flash fire during a refuelling stop, during which a mechanic suffered superficial burns. It finished just 53s after the Falken Porsche.

In fifth place was the #5 Black Falcon Mercedes SLS, which didn’t quite have the all-pro driver line-up of those ahead to keep up.

Leading cars crash out

As ever, there were plenty of hard luck stories and 'what ifs' for many competitors, including three cars which crashed out having led the race.

The first was the #20 Schubert BMW Z4, which led the opening 50 minutes of the race. Claudia Hurtgen was at the wheel when she crashed at Pflanzgarten 2 during the first heavy rain shower on Saturday afternoon, severely damaging the right-front corner and forcing its retirement after 30 laps.

Its sister car, the #19, was also running strongly when it crashed on the Dottinger Hohe and was forced out just after darkness had descended.

The #30 Frikadelli Porsche of Sabine Schmitz, Patrick Huisman, Patrick Pilet and Jorg Bergmeister then established itself in the lead, until Pilet hit the #31 Mercedes and crashed out at the Karussel in heavy rain.

The next big casualty was the #1 Phoenix Audi – crewed by Christopher Haase, Christian Mamerow, Rene Rast and Markus Winkelhock. It crashed out of the lead in Mamerow’s hands just after Pflanzgarten.

The front-running #2 Black Falcon Mercedes suffered a driveline issue that caused it to shed its left-rear wheel, and despite Adam Christodoulou’s best efforts to fix it trackside, it was forced out after just four hours.

Pos  No. Drivers  Car   Laps
28 Christopher Mies
Edward Sandstrom
Nico Muller
Laurens Vanthoor
Audi R8 LMS 156
25 Maxime Martin
Lucas Luhr
Markus Palttala
Richard Westbrook
BMW Z4 GT3 156
44 Peter Dumbreck
Wolf Henzler
Martin Ragginger
Alexandre Imperatori
Porsche 997 GT3 R 155
26 Augusto Farfus
Jorg Muller
Nicky Catsburg
Dirk Adorf
BMW Z4 GT3 155
5 Abdulaziz Al Faisal
Hubert Haupt
Yelmer Buurman
Jaap van Lagen
Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 155
17 Felipe Fernandez Laser
Michela Cerruti
John Michael Edwards
Daniel Keilwitz
BMW Z4 GT3 153
29 Nicki Thiim
Christer Jons
Pierre Kaffer
Laurens Vanthoor
Audi R8 LMS 153
11 Harold Primat
Christopher Bruck
Clemens Schmid
Marco Seefried
Bentley Continental GT3 151
35 Alex Buncombe
Kazuki Hoshino
Michael Krumm
Lucas Ordonez
Nissan GT-R GT3 151
10  33 Rob Huff
Kenneth Heyer
Philipp Frommenwiler
Christian Krognes
Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 151

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