Manthey Porsche Still Leads With 6 Hours to Go

Photo: Porsche

Manthey Racing is still at the front of the Nürburgring 24 field with three-quarters of the race completed, currently holding a 1 minute, 40 second lead.

Laurens Vanthoor is at the wheel of the No. 911 Porsche 911 GT3 R which has led since around 11:10 p.m. local time, with the race settling down in the morning hours.

Raffaele Marciello currently runs second in the HTP Motorsport-run Mann-Filter Mercedes-AMG GT3, 100 seconds behind Vanthoor, while Sven Mueller is third for Frikadelli Racing Team.

Mueller’s co-driver Mathieu Jaminet had passed the No. 48 Mercedes a couple of hours earlier but a penalty for the Frikadelli Porsche dropped it back to third.

It was given a 33-second stop-and-hold penalty for one of its pit stops, the one during which Jaminet was able to pass the Mercedes, being one second too short.

Mercedes factory driver Marciello led Mueller by 15 seconds after the most recent round of stops when the Frenchman served the penalty, and has now extended the gap to 24 seconds.

The leaders are all due another stop within the next two laps, as of 9:30 a.m.

Christopher Haase and Frank Stippler have continued their scrap for fourth, with Haase currently ahead in the Audi Sport Team Land car.

Elsewhere, the race has been fairly quiet in the last few hours, save for a couple of crashes for lower-class cars. 

Six cars are on the lead lap, going back to Nico Bastian’s No. 6 Black Falcon Mercedes behind the duelling pair of Audis.

SP 8T and SP 10, the two classes including most of the GT4 cars, have both been fairly stable for the last ten hours.

Alex Brundle and the No. 37 Aston Martin Vantage GT4 are out front in SP 8T, while Marek Boeckmann currently leads SP 10, the class entirely reserved for standard GT4 cars, with the Black Falcon Team Identica Mercedes.

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.