24-hour race on the Nürburgring 2008

The 2008 24-hour race at the Nürburgring was the 36th edition of the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring . It took place from May 22nd to 25th, 2008.

Timed practice

More than 270 vehicles were named for 2008, 230 of which, according to the track acceptance protocol, could take part in the training in order to qualify for one of the 220 starting positions. For the first time, the fast teams were given the opportunity to complete a fast lap at the start of the first qualifying session on Friday afternoon without the numerous other vehicles. In a 24-hour race, the starting position has almost no significance for the outcome of the race, but it is a competitive matter among professionals for reasons of prestige and media presence. The pole position for the 24-hour race in 2008 was secured by last year's winning team, Manthey Racing, with a time of 8: 26.730 minutes, since the second, 235 minutes, significantly longer qualifying session on Friday night No team drove faster on Saturday. Manthey Racing fielded several Porsches in 2008, but the clear favorite was last year's winning car, the Porsche 997 GT3 RSR with starting number 1, driven by professionals Timo Bernhard, Marc Lieb , Romain Dumas and Marcel Tiemann.

The second starting position, 8: 29.838 minutes or 3.108 seconds behind, was occupied by the Jürgen Alzen Motorsport team with a newly built Porsche 997 Turbo. The Alzen team had already used a fast 996 Turbo from 2003 to 2005, but then tried to be successful with a Porsche Cayman . The turbo-Porsche with start number 4 was not driven by Uwe Alzen , but by Jürgen Alzen , Markus Gedlich , Christian Abt and Christian Menzel .

The third starting position went to the Zakspeed team's Dodge Viper GTS-R with a time of 8: 31.132 minutes. The number 2 Viper, whose V10 engine had been reduced to eight cylinders and a displacement of 6.2 liters, was driven by Sascha Bert , Christophe Bouchut , Tom Coronel and Duncan Huisman .

Land Motorsport's Porsche 911 GT3 achieved fourth place with 8: 39.495 minutes. The car with starting number 3 was driven by Marc Basseng , Patrick Simon and Johannes Stuck , the son of Hans-Joachim Stuck.

run

The race started on May 24th at 3 p.m. CEST in sunny weather. Immediately after the start, smoke developed on the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR from Manthey Racing with starting number 1. The winning car from last year quickly fell back and turned into the pit lane at the end of the GP circuit. A cooling hose was torn from its position and simmered on the engine. During the repair, the competitors completed two laps, the Porsche 997 Turbo with starting number 4 had taken the lead. However, he was already overtaken on lap three by the Zakspeed Viper with starting number 2, which gave up the lead again on the same lap due to an unplanned pit stop. In the hours that followed, the relatively weak but economical BMW Z4 M from Schubert Motorsport was able to take the lead for a long time, but was eliminated during the night due to an accident.

Scirocco GT24, 2008

The team from Manthey Racing won with two vehicles, the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, the winning car from 2007, ahead of the Porsche 911 GT3-MR from 2006. Sabine Schmitz in a Porsche GT3 from Frikadelli Racing finished third, her greatest success since the overall victories. Hans-Joachim Stuck was active as the new representative of Volkswagen on two new VW Scirocco GT24 , finished 11th and 15th and thus also won the class in which u. a. Opel had entered the OPC Race Camp. Heinz-Harald Frentzen's innovative hybrid racing car based on a Gumpert Apollo was not included in the ranking due to two defects in the transmission.

Result

space	driver	team	vehicle	Round
1	Timo Bernhard / Marc Lieb / Romain Dumas / Marcel Tiemann	Manthey Racing	Porsche 997 GT3 RSR	148
2	Armin Hahne / Christian Haarmann / Jochen Krumbach / Pierre Kaffer	Manthey Racing	Porsche 996 GT3-MR	147
3	Sabine Schmitz / Klaus Abbelen / Edgar Althoff / Kenneth Heyer	Frikadelli Racing	Porsche 997 GT3 Cup	145
4th	Marko Hartung / Stefan Neuberger / Franz Engstler	Team ORMS Racing	BMW Z4 M Coupe	144
5	Frank Kräling / Marc Gindorf / Peter Scharmach / Martin Ragginger	Manthey Racing	Porsche 997 GT3 Cup	144
6th	Johannes Scheid / Oliver Kainz / Andreas Teichmann / Arno Klasen	Scheid Motorsport	BMW M3 E46 GTRS	143
7th	Jörn Schmidt-Staade / Stefan Müller / Kai Riemer / Florian Scholze	Agon Motorsport	Porsche 997 GT3 Cup	141
8th	Bert Lambrecht / Jean-Francois Hemroulle / Lance David Arnold	Manthey Racing	Porsche 997 GT3 Cup	141
9	Stefan Peters / Ulf Karlsson / Hannes Plesse / Wolfgang Kohler	Agon Motorsport	Porsche 997 GT3 Cup	140
10	Sergey Matveev / Valeriy Gorban / Stanislav Gryazin / Ergeny Tsarev	Country Motorsport	Porsche 997 GT3 Cup	139

literature

• 24 STUNDEN NÜRBURGRING NORDSCHLEIFE 2008 , Group C Motorsport Verlag Duisburg, ISBN 978-3-928-54055-1

Web links

Commons : 24-hour race on the Nürburgring  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website for the 24-hour race on the Nürburgring
• Information portal with a focus on 24-hour races / VLN
• 20832.com (originally founded on the occasion of the 24-hour race participation of an Audi 200)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hybrid Racing AG: 24h Nürburgring: Frentzen starts with hybrid racing cars in the Green Hell. Speed-Magazin.de, May 15, 2008, accessed on July 20, 2013 .