Connect with us

Nürburgring Endurance

Nürburgring 24 Red-Flagged After Six Hours Due to Fog

Nürburgring 24 placed under red flag conditions due to heavy fog after six hours…

Image: ADAC-TOTAL 24H

The Nürburgring 24 has been red-flagged after six hours of racing due to poor visibility in a dense fog around the German circuit.

Cars were ordered back to the pits when the clock hit 9:30 p.m. local time on Saturday, at the one-quarter distance milestone. An update at 10:30 p.m. declared that the earliest possible restart time is 7 a.m. (1 a.m. EST). The next update will be issued at 6 a.m.

Local speed restriction zones were initiated at various parts of the 25 km Nordschleife combined circuit during the sixth hour. This later escalated into a circuit-wide stoppage.

Haupt Racing Team’s No. 4 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo led at the red flag, with Adam Christodoulou at the wheel having taken over from Manuel Metzger at the car’s fifth stop.

However, the No. 1 ROWE Racing BMW M6 GT3 of Nick Yelloly, Nicky Catsburg, John Edwards and Philipp Eng will lead the field away at the restart.

This is because the results were taken from lap 34, which was the penultimate lap before the red flag.

ROWE was the last of the SP9 front-runners to pit during the sixth hour and did so from the lead. Despite dropping behind five cars including net leader HRT, the BMW’s position as the leader when it made its fifth stop gave it the top restart position for Sunday.

Christodoulou, Metzger, Luca Stolz and Maro Engel – who is yet to drive HRT’s No. 4 Bilstein car – held an advantage of just under 40 seconds from the second-placed Schubert Motorsport BMW with defending race winner Alexander Sims at the wheel.

The Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, which led early on through Kevin Estre before dropping behind HRT in the third hour, had slipped to fifth by the six-hour mark and will start from sixth, factoring in the ROWE BMW’s situation.

Manthey’s Matteo Cairoli was running 45 seconds off Christodoulou at the top of hour six, but the Italian ended up behind Sims, Phoenix Racing Audi driver Kim Luis Schramm and No. 98 ROWE BMW driver Sheldon van der Linde after the fifth pit sequence.

Schramm’s No. 11 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo was right on the tail of Sims’ No. 20 BMW when the red flag was called.

The German driver had recently taken over from Nicki Thiim, who made a handful of overtakes to bring Audi’s top entry into contention for the podium positions.

Van der Linde was a further 16 seconds back in fourth, having fallen behind the Phoenix Audi around the time of the most recent pit stops, while Cairoli was 25 seconds away.

The No. 1 ROWE Racing BMW rejoined from its fifth scheduled pit visit in sixth behind the Manthey Porsche, but as noted will take the restart from first position.

Dennis Olsen was running seventh in the No. 31 Frikadelli Racing Porsche, from Audi Sport Team Land’s Rene Rast and the two Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed entries.

A notable casualty between hours four and six was the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus 004C, which Richard Westbrook parked to one side on the GP circuit after spinning at Turn 1. The team stated on Twitter that the problems stemmed from a broken oil line.

Last year’s Nürburging 24 edition, which took place in late September rather than June, was put under an overnight flag after seven hours of racing due to heavy rain.

Positions at Red Flag (Six Hours)

Daniel Lloyd is a UK-based reporter for Sportscar365, covering the FIA World Endurance Championship, Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, among other series.

Click to comment
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

More in Nürburgring Endurance