24-hour race on the Nürburgring 2012

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The 24-hour race at the Nürburgring 2012 was the 40th edition of the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring and took place from May 17 to 20, 2012.

Since the 2012 DTM ran a race at Brands Hatch in the UK parallel to the 24-hour race, the top favorites Audi and BMW were not represented by the previous works teams. Phoenix competed for Audi and Schubert for BMW as the official works teams. The team bosses, above all Wolfgang Ullrich and Hans-Jürgen Abt from Audi and Jens Marquardt and Charly Lamm from BMW, as well as some of the drivers from last year such as Mattias Ekström, Timo Scheider, Dirk Werner, Andy Priaulx and Augusto Farfus were in the DTM and could not take part in the 24-hour race.

Of the previous record winners Marcel Tiemann, Pedro Lamy and Timo Bernhard, only Lamy was entered. Tiemann and Bernhard were canceled due to injuries. Lamy thus had the chance to become the sole record winner. In contrast, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas, who competed together in the Wochenspiegel-Manthey, had the opportunity to catch up with the previous record winners with five wins.

There was a specialty with the distribution of the start numbers. With the number 1, it was not last year's winner, but a prototype. The reason for this was that last year's winner, a Porsche works outing by Team Manthey with the well-known yellow-green Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, had not started. The Manthey team fielded another vehicle, the Wochenspiegel-Porsche, with the winners of the previous year and got the number 11. At BMW-Team Schubert the starting numbers were 19 for the number of previous overall victories and 20 for the possible 20th overall victory elected.

Racing classes

The following vehicle classes were represented at the 2012 24-hour race:

class number of vehicles
24h special
SP 2T (Turbo) 7th
SP 3 16
SP 3T (Turbo) 13
SP 4 0
SP 4T (Turbo) 9
SP 5 4th
SP 6 6th
SP 7 14th
SP 8 5
SP 8T (Turbo) 3
SP 9 (FIA GT3) 29
SP 10 (SRO-GT4) 12
D1T (diesel) 1
D2T (diesel) 0
D3T (diesel) 2
D4T (diesel) 0
AT
AT (alternative fuels) 5
E1-XP
E1-XP1 0
E1-XP2 0
E1-XP hybrid 1
VLN production car
V 2 0
V 3 4th
V 4 10
V 5 7th
V 6 11
Entire vehicles
total 169

Qualifying

For the 40th edition of the race, a new qualifying format, the so-called Top40, was introduced and held on Friday evening from 6 p.m. It was supposed to give the 40 fastest drivers the opportunity to achieve top times in two free laps, which ultimately resulted in starting positions 1 to 40.

The 10 fastest of the previous three VLN qualifying sessions, i.e. a maximum of 30 vehicles, were able to pre-qualify for the Top40. The fastest vehicles from the two qualifying sessions were able to qualify for the remaining places in the 24-hour race.

In the VLN races only 17 different vehicles qualified for the Top40, so that another 23 from the qualifying sessions of the 24-hour race filled the field of participants.

The qualified vehicles were able to complete two timed laps on the entire route with one driver. The starting order was drawn. The respective driver had to draw his own placement.

The vehicles were then sent to the time chase every 10 seconds. There were already overtaking maneuvers in the warm-up lap.

The Gemballa-McLaren owned by Sascha Bert, Hendrik Vieth, Nick Heidfeld and Klaus Ludwig, who had qualified for the Top40, could not take part because of the third engine change of the weekend. The gearbox was also changed. The vehicle started from position 39.

The Falken-Porsche was excluded from the Top40 because of a rule violation. The vehicles pre-qualified by the VLN races were only allowed to contest the qualifying sessions after 20 minutes. However, the Falken Porsche with starting number 44 was already sent out on the track before this waiting time had expired. The drivers Henzler / Dumbreck / Ragginger / Asch were placed on starting position 40.

Uwe Alzen put the Schubert Z4 in pole position in a time of 8: 18.382 minutes. Chris Mamerow (Audi R8 LMS ultra) and Sean Edwards (Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG) followed in second and third place. Both vehicles were only slightly slower with a gap of 1.3 and 1.6 seconds respectively.

The best Porsche followed, 3 seconds behind, in 6th place with last year's winners Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas, Lucas Luhr and Richard Lietz.

The sons of the new DMSB President Hans-Joachim Stuck qualified in 16th place with an Aston Martin from the Young Driver Team.

This time the Haribo Racing Team only fielded a Porsche (starting position 24), but also a gold-colored Corvette (18th). Thomas Gottschalk followed the race as a star guest on the occasion of the 90th birthday of the gold bears.

The top 15 vehicles in the Top40 were within 5 seconds. There were only 28 seconds between the pole setter and the last driving team (38th).

run

The start of the race was largely calm. After a short time, however, the number of accidents involving vehicles, especially from the smaller classes, increased. Due to the large number of small parts on the track, even the top vehicles were damaged several times in the first hour of the race. For example, the Black Falcon SLS with Jeroen Bleekemolen, which started from third position, suffered a tire damage on the Döttinger Höhe and hit the guardrails at high speed. Frank Stippler in the Audi R8 drove directly in the slipstream, but was still able to avoid it. In the period that followed, a Porsche Cayman had an accident at the same location in the yellow phase, and a Porsche 911 after around 3.5 hours.

Throughout the night there were comparatively few failures of victorious teams until sunrise in the morning. The McLaren from Dörr Motorsport and Gemballa had already retired that evening, as well as the Haribo-Porsche. The Z4 GT3 of BMW Team Schubert (No. 19), which had been in the lead for a long time and started from pole position, lost a lot of time due to the change of the drive shaft and fell back to 15th place, 5 laps behind. The same happened to Team Phoenix's R8 (No. 2), which was in the lead after a collision with a slower vehicle and the subsequent repair, dropping back to 14th place. The Wochenspiegel-Porsche of last year's winner (No. 11) also had an accident that night, but didn't lose that much time. The Manthey team was in 6th place, just under 4 minutes behind.

The expected rain set in between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. on Sunday morning. After 15.5 hours, Rowe's SLS (No. 22) completed the 100th lap of the race with the Graf / Jäger / Roloff / Seyffarth drivers. It was followed by the second vehicles from Phoenix (No. 3) and Schubert (No. 20). The ten best-placed vehicles were within one lap.

After three quarters of the race, the Rowe SLS No. 22 was in the lead with 116 laps, ahead of the Bilstein R8 No. 3 (+0.3 seconds), Schubert-Z4 No. 20 (+2 minutes) and Wochenspiegel-Porsche No. 11 (+4 minutes). All other vehicles were lagging behind. Due to an unscheduled stop by the Rowe team, Phoenix took the lead on lap 118.

An hour before the end of the race, the Phoenix R8 was almost one lap ahead of the Mamerow R8 (No. 26). It was followed by the SLS from the Hankook team Heico (No. 65) and the Wochenspiegel-Porsche. The previous front runners from Team Rowe (No. 22) had fallen far behind due to a damper damage. The same happened to the Schubert Z4 (No. 20), which came second after 18 hours, and suffered damage to the drive shaft like the sister car No. 19. Manthey's Porsche (No. 10) retired in 5th place after a collision with a slower vehicle.

13 minutes before the end of the 24 hours, Team Heico (No. 65), which was in third place, with drivers Bernd Schneider, Kenneth Heyer, Lance David Arnold and Alexandros Margaritis, retired with a radiator damage in the Hohe Acht area. In the previous year, the SLS had already lost a top ranking due to a failure immediately before the end. The Wochenspiegel-Porsche thus took third place.

The two leading R8s from Phoenix and Mamerow were able to take it easy on the last lap. They had 5 minutes between each other and the following vehicles.

In the final, the Wochenspiegel-Porsche, in third place, and the second SLS (No. 66) used by the Heico team drove slalom around the vehicles to be lapped and fought for the last podium place. Due to the remaining time, both vehicles had to complete another lap.

About 10 seconds before the time ran out, the Wochenspiegel-Porsche rolled out on the home straight due to a lack of fuel. Heico's SLS took third place without a fight. In addition, a Renault Clio drove on the rolling Porsche from Manthey.

The race was won by the Audi R8 LMS ultra from Phoenix, which has been in the lead since the 118th lap, with drivers Marc Basseng, Frank Stippler, Christopher Haase and Markus Winkelhock, ahead of the R8 entered by Mamerow Racing with Chris Mamerow, Christian Abt, Michael Ammermüller and Armin Hahne. The podium is completed by the Hankook Team Heico in a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG with drivers Christaan ​​Frankenhout, Pierre Kaffer, Andreas Simonsen and Lance David Arnold.

It was Audi’s first victory in this race. All four drivers also achieved their first overall victory. The Phoenix team won for the third time after 2000 and 2003.

Of the 169 vehicles that started, 111 vehicles were included in the ranking, i.e. after the 24 hours had passed, they had crossed the finish line and completed the required 50% of the number of laps of the winner. The Wochenspiegel-Porsche No. 11 and the Renault Clio No. 169, which collided just a few seconds before the end of the race after crossing the finish line, were counted as not at the finish.

Result

space driver team vehicle Round
1 Marc Basseng / Christopher Haase / Frank Stippler / Markus Winkelhock Audi Sport Team Phoenix Audi R8 LMS ultra 155
2 Chris Mamerow / Christian Abt / Michael Ammermüller / Armin Hahne Mamerow Racing Audi R8 LMS ultra 155
3 Christiaan Frankenhout / Andreas Simonsen / Pierre Kaffer / Lance David Arnold Hankook team Heico Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 155
4th Bas Leinders / Markus Palttala / Maxime Martin Marc VDS Racing Team BMW Z4 GT3 154
5 Marcel Fässler / Christopher Mies / René Rast / Frank Stippler Audi Sport Team Phoenix Audi R8 LMS ultra 151
6th Klaus Abbelen / Sabine Schmitz / Christopher Brück / Patrick Huismann Frikadelli Racing Porsche 997 GT3 R. 151
7th Jörg Müller / Dirk Müller / Uwe Alzen / Dirk Adorf BMW Team Schubert BMW Z4 GT3 150
8th Claudia Hürtgen / Dominik Schwager / Nico Bastian / Dirk Adorf BMW Team Schubert BMW Z4 GT3 150
9 Jens Klingmann / Marco Wittmann / Richard Göransson / Pedro Lamy BMW Team Vita4one BMW Z4 GT3 150
10 Michael Zehe / Marko Hartung / Roland Rehfeld / Mark Bullitt Rowe Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 150

particularities

As in 2010 and 2011, another car in the E1-XP Hybrid class was launched in 2012. This year it was a Ferrari P 4/5 Competizione from the Global Partner Enterprise SA team. The vehicle finished in 12th place.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Motorsport-Total.com: New qualifying format for the 24-hour race. March 27, 2012, accessed May 21, 2013 .