“Hunger is Huge” for Mercedes-AMG to End N24 Winless Run

Maro Engel says “the hunger is huge” for Mercedes-AMG to break its winless run at the Nürburgring 24 after going six editions without reaching the top step of the podium.

Mercedes-AMG’s most recent victory at the Nordschleife enduro came in 2016 with Black Falcon but its teams were unable to deliver a repeat in the subsequent half-dozen visits despite coming close.

Engel, who shares the No. 3 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella, was part of the winning lineup seven years ago and is keen to end the longest drought of the four major German manufacturers this weekend.

Mercedes-AMG came close to its third N24 victory last year when Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed finished second and third, but top honors went to Audi Sport Team Phoenix.

“The hunger is huge,” Engel told Sportscar365.

“The last win in 2016 feels like ages ago. We had opportunities. Myself with my teammates, we had incidents three times when we were in the lead of the race.

“We know it’s an incredibly tough race and everything needs to align. The Nürburgring needs to choose you rather than you stamping your authority on the event.”

Mercedes-AMG has retained its driver lineups from last year’s race as it seeks to build on the improvement that it registered 12 months ago when it took a double podium.

That result came after the previous two editions saw high-profile Mercedes-AMG entries crash out from promising positions.

“Last year was a very strong race,” said Engel, who finished third alongside Gounon and Juncadella.

“Our sister car was obviously very close. We had everything we needed in our car with Jules and Dani. I think we were just very unfortunate with the way we were position-wise with strategy on track.

“We got caught up with Code 60s happening between the leaders and ourselves.

“There are a lot of factors that go into this race. From our perspective, we try to prepare as well as we can.

“That led into the decision to keep things as stable as possible, because we all felt that last year was a strong run. The two GetSpeed cars are the same. HRT elected to stay quite similar with their lineup on the No. 4 car.

“From that point of view, we feel like we’ve prepared well and done everything we could to get ready. But the aim is to finally get that win again.”

Engel highlighted that Code 60 periods, where a 60 km/h speed limit is temporarily imposed around an accident area, can make or break a reliable team’s race at the N24.

The event notably doesn’t have safety car periods, so regaining lost time can only happen through outright pace or misfortune to competitors further up the road.

“Last year, as the leaders crashed, everyone who was running behind at that point – even if in theory they might have been ahead by running longer in the first stint – was affected,” said Engel.

“That knock-on effect happened a few times in the race. If you get knocked back 45 seconds or a minute through a Code 60, it’s really tough to get that back.

“That element is always going to play a key part in this race. You can try to position your strategy in the best way you think, but until those Code 60s happen you don’t know what the best strategy is. Certainly, that affected our car a lot.

“The winners and our sister car stopped a lap earlier than us, which put them 20 seconds ahead [along] with the Manthey car. When that crashed it affected everyone on a different strategy behind. It’s a tough race, and tough from a competitor point of view.

“There are extremely high-quality drivers, teams and manufacturer cars on the grid. It’s very hard to predict who is going to be the favorite.

“We can only put our best foot forward, learn to improve and we hope that the ‘Ring will smile to us again this year.”