How a DTM failure became an unlikely Nurburgring 24h winner

Opel's fortunes in the DTM had taken a turn for the worst by 2003 - hardly the pedigree that suggested it could take on the toughest 24-hour race of them all. But that's exactly what it did…

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"When the idea came up to do it with a DTM car, it was like a silence in the room," remembers Timo Scheider. "It was like, 'Are you serious?' We were thinking, 'That will be a challenge.' In the beginning there was a feeling of, 'Let's try it. If we quit after three laps, we quit after three laps.' It was a bit like this."

"Everybody was laughing because to get a DTM car reliable for 24 hours at the Nordschleife, it's a big project!" adds Manuel Reuter. "But in the end, we showed it was worth it."

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Author James Newbold

James Newbold is Autosport's Plus Editor, responsible for coordinating website feature content.

In a sign of things to come, having completed his Politics and International Relations degree at the University of East Anglia in 2015, he left his graduation ceremony early to catch the last train to Brussels for the following day's Spa 24 Hours.

After a period as a freelancer, he joined the Autosport staff in 2018 and won the Motorsport UK young journalist of the year award.

He initially edited Autosport magazine's Performance and Engineering supplements before joining the website team in his current role in 2020.

A keen enthusiast of anything that can be categorised unusual, niche or random, he enjoys unearthing little-known stories across all branches of motorsport, but has spent most of his career covering sportscars as Autosport's British GT correspondent and is a regular part of the Le Mans 24 Hours reporting team.

An expert in catching 40 winks on media centre floors, he lives with his wife and son in Plymouth, England.