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Photo: Gruppe C Photography/BMW BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos has hailed the top-five overall finish for the BMW M3 Touring 24H in the Nürburgring 24 as a ‘better than expected’ result for the one-off race car that started as an April Fools joke less than 14 months ago. Jens Klingmann, Connor De Phillippi, Neil Verhagen and Ugo de Wilde drove the GT3-based estate/wagon to a fifth place result and class victory in the SP-X class, after running as high as second overall in the Eifel endurance classic. “My goal was to have the car in the top-ten,” Roos told reporters post-race. “We managed to have the car in the top-five. We have to say the car was always able to be hang there and to have a great race. “It’s better what we ever expected to do with the Touring, to be honest. “We always said if we go here with the Touring, it has to be a competitive car. But it was that competitive that we can have at the end a top five result ...

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO Mattia Drudi says he never expected “underdogs” Aston Martin to score a first-ever overall Nürburgring 24 podium in this year’s race, a contest he described as “crazy.” Drudi narrowly missed out on securing the runner-up spot in the No. 34 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo he shared with Nicki Thiim and Christian Krognes when encountering traffic and a Code 60 zone on the last lap while chasing down the No. 84 ABT Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 — which was carrying a post-race penalty — in the battle for second. The Walkenhorst car vaulted up the order at the start of the second hour of this year’s contest, after qualifying 11th, having opted for a shorter opening stint. It then continued to run near the front while a host of other top crews encountered issues or crashed out amid a chaotic first third of the race. When Sportscar365 asked Drudi if he expected to finish on the podium, he replied: “To be fair, no. ...

Source: Sports Car 365

Photo: Nurburgring 24 Hours The Manthey ‘Grello’ Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Kevin Estre that had been closing on the lead of the Nürburgring 24 crashed out in the fourth hour of the race, shortly before Arjun Maini had a sizeable shunt at the same Brunnchen corner. Following the third round of stops, Estre had narrowed a 20-second lead for the No. 80 Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo down to just 6.7 seconds. The No. 911 Porsche had earlier effectively been the race leader and Estre was flying up towards Jules Gounon aboard the Mercedes-AMG when he lost the rear of the car at Brunnchen and spun into the barriers backwards after oil had been laid down at that part of the track. Estre was unable to continue and his car had to be retrieved by a recovery vehicle and returned to the pits. The Manthey team later confirmed that the damage was too great for the car, which finished second in last year’s race, to be able to continue. Moments later, Maini lost contro...

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO Max Verstappen stormed into the lead of the Nürburgring 24 after three hours aboard the No. 3 Winward Racing-run Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, while a host of front-running contenders hit trouble. The four-time Formula 1 champion had a nervy start to his stint at the beginning of the second hour after taking over from Dani Juncadella when he ran wide onto the grass at the Eiskurve. He then had another grassy moment as he passed the No. 47 KCMG Mercedes-AMG of Jesse Krohn on the grass at Klostertal, before his next target was the No. 911 Manthey ‘Grello’ Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Ayhancan Guven that was the net leader as the first of the cars on the more traditional strategy. With Guven struggling to stop at the first turn in the third hour, Verstappen sensed an opportunity and dived down the inside and just made the corner to take the place. He then set off after the two leaders, the No. 34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Christian...

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO The BMW M4 GT3 EVO will head into this afternoon’s start of the Nürburgring 24 with a 10 kg weight increase, as the GT3 manufacturer being the hardest hit with a series of pre-race Balance of Performance adjustments by race organizer ADAC. Confirmed on Saturday morning, the defending race-winning car has gone from a minimum weight of 1340 kg to 1350 kg, despite the highest-placed BMW qualifying ninth. By contrast, the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, which swept the front row in Top Qualifying 3 and have been deemed to have been favorites on pure pace from multiple rival manufacturers, has only been hit with a 5 kg increase in weight and a 0.5 mm reduction in its air restrictor, going from 50.5 to 50 mm, which Sportscar365 understands equates to roughly 9-10 horsepower. Additionally, the Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo has also been given 5 kg of additional weight, while the Ford Mustang GT3 EVO’s second air restrictor returns to 35 mm, the same si...

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO Kevin Estre said he’s expecting a “much closer” race between multiple manufacturers in this weekend’s Nürburgring 24 but believes top honors could come again come down to the “three or four” teams that typically execute perfect races on the Nordschleife. The Frenchman returns to Manthey Racing’s ‘Grello’ entry, again sharing the No. 911 machine with fellow Porsche factory drivers Ayhancan Guven and Thomas Preining after the trio won last year’s race on the road but were handed a 100-second post-race penalty for an incident that Estre had with a GT4 car in the closing stages of the Eifel endurance classic. The contentious penalty, which was protested by the German squad, was thrown out by race organizers ADAC. “It’s like a decision you make in a fraction of a second together with a decision from someone else, and it goes really fast,” Estre told Sportscar365. “Last...