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Nürburgring Endurance

Manthey in Barrier as Vanthoors Come Together

Defending race winner Manthey Racing eliminated in hour 4 after crash for Laurens Vanthoor…

Image: N24

Defending Nürburgring 24 winner Manthey Racing has crashed out of the race after Laurens Vanthoor and his brother Dries came together in a positional battle.

The drivers were engaged in a duel over third place and were side-by-side down the Dottinger Höhe heading down towards Tiergarten when they made slight contact.

This resulted in the No. 1 Porsche 911 GT3 R spinning across the track and making heavy contact with the right-side barrier, which destroyed the front of the car.

Dries Vanthoor continued with his No. 15 Audi Sport Team Phoenix Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II unscathed and returned to third position.

Vanthoor was trying to get past his older brother Laurens after the Manthey Porsche driver moved ahead at Schwedenkreuz 10 minutes before their dramatic incident after three and a half hours of racing. The race stewards ruled no further action.

TF Sport’s No. 90 Aston Martin Vantage GT3, currently driven by David Pittard, leads the N24 overall.

Pittard took the car over after Maxime Martin moved into the lead by first passing the No. 98 ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 of John Edwards before drafting past the Manthey Porsche not much later. TF Sport is gradually extending its 

The No. 98 BMW remains in second ahead of Vanthoor and Adam Christodolou’s No. 3 GetSpeed Performance Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

A number of other major contenders in the SP9 class have also fallen away.

Notably, ROWE Racing’s No. 99 BMW that started on the front row of the gird, and the No. 27 Toksport WRT Porsche, were involved in a collision at the Veedol Chicane.

Nick Yelloly’s run up the inside of Julien Andlauer put the Frenchman in the gravel, with the Porsche having since been classed as a retirement.

The BMW has been wheeled back to the car’s paddock garage for repairs and has been diagnosed with a broken front wishbone.

It has also been dealt a 92-second time penalty for causing a collision.

Less than 10 minutes after the contact between Yelloly and Andlauer, the No. 12 Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein Mercedes that squeezed through their accident also encountered trouble when Luca Stolz ran into the back of a slower GT4 Porsche.

This caused a puncture and inflicted damage to the right-front corner of the car, which spent some time in the garage but has since rejoined outside the top 30.

The remainder of the top ten overall is made up by the No. 7 Konrad Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo of Axcil Jefferies, Daniel Juncadella’s No. 4 Team GetSpeed Mercedes, followed by Christian Krognes, Rene Rast and Hubert Haupt.

Davey Euwema is Sportscar365's European Editor. Based in The Netherlands, Euwema covers the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS, among other series.

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