Andlauer Praises Importance of Nürburgring 24 Tire Freedom

Porsche factory driver Julien Andlauer says it is “great” that the Nürburgring 24 still allows teams free tire use, believing “you would have much less cars” with a single brand mandated.

The N24 is one of the few remaining top-tier sports car events where teams are not restricted to a certain tire brand and across the 13 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evos in the top SP9 class, there are six different companies represented.

Andlauer is switching to Dunlops this year as the company is now sponsoring the No. 17 Schnabl-entered Porsche and has enjoyed developing the tires for the race.

“I think it’s great to give some freedom like this to different manufacturers but also give the opportunity for the brand to have a bit more of an impact, to be a bit more part of the racing,” he told Sportscar365.

“If you look at IMSA, WEC or whatever, they always win. They don’t really have the competition, they just produce the tire and sell the tire and they’re only there to support.

“Here they are here to support but they’re here to be competitive and here to win — they are going to do the maximum and best they can do to deliver the best tire to us in order to compete.

“It brings [competition to] the tire manufacturers but it also brings the partnerships. It can be Michelin, Hankook, Pirelli, Goodyear, Falken and Dunlop, they bring sponsorship and budget help to the teams, which is great and very helpful.

“There’s a lot of pro lineups here and a lot is thanks to the support of the tire manufacturers — I believe you would have much less cars [if it’s one-make].”

In the SP9 class alone, there are four cars entered under the name of a different tire manufacturer.

Andlauer described a close relationship with Dunlop to work together to ensure the tires are optimized for the challenge of the Nordschleife, believing there is still a little bit of performance to unlock.

“Every single test session, every single race — even the NLS races — we have a very close contact and always have at least one or two people on site from Dunlop to really work together and give the maximum details and feedback about what’s happening on track and what we want and what we need to always bring some little evolutions, some little fixes to get a better product,” he added.

Andlauer believes Dunlop’s strengths come in cool, but dry conditions and said that this year’s event represents “revenge” for last year, when his Falken-branded car was eliminated from podium contention after contact with a spun lower-class car when unsighted.

The sister No. 44 Schnabl car retains Falken backing and Klaus Bachler is back part of the team’s lineup after being forced to miss last year’s event with a clashing IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship commitment.

Cars on Michelin tires have won the past eight editions of the N24 but Bachler is determined to end that sequence this time around.

“This would be the dream and that’s why we’re here,” he told Sportscar365. “It’s my eighth 24-hour race with Falken Motorsport and I’m very happy to be back.

“Every tire has its advantage in certain kinds of conditions or temperature windows and we hope for some window where it works really well and then we can fight.

“Last year the team showed really good speed and in the end it was not meant to be and they had an incident in Turn 1 and were fighting for the top three at this moment.

“This race you can be the fastest car but one small thing, one unlucky situation with traffic or weather conditions or oil on track and everything can be over very quickly.”

Hartog: N24 “More Like F1” With Multiple Tire Compounds

In addition to the different tire manufacturers, each brand has also been required to homologate a Soft, Medium, Hard and wet weather compound for the N24.

Loek Hartog, who is due to drive both of the Dinamic GT Porsches on Pirelli tires, says this is another challenge for the tire manufacturers and teams.

“It starts to look more like F1 than options we normally have in GT racing usually,” he told Sportscar365, saying it was “very cool to witness, first hand working with tire engineers” on helping to develop the rubber.

“This track, you have a different way of developing the tire. It’s actually a lot less stressful for the tire, so you actually bring more aggressive tires. It’s really a different way of learning and developing a specific tire.”

Hartog added that the race moving a month earlier in the year than 2025 and featuring much cooler conditions brings additional challenges.

“Our dry tire is not in its peak window, let’s say,” he said. “This is not really our ideal conditions.

“But, once the track gets half wet, half dry, which is a realistic condition for this weekend, it actually might suit our rain tire really well.

“If it’s pouring down, we have no chance at all. We really lose a lot of lap time compared to some other tire manufacturers that have more experience with torrential conditions, but our really strong suit is half dry, half wet conditions.”

John Dagys contributed to this report