Nürburgring Post-Race Notebook

***The results of the 52nd running of the Nürburgring 24 remain provisional as a result of ROWE Racing’s appeal in the wake of a rejected protest lodged immediately after the race on Sunday. The Hans-Peter Naundorf-led squad is now set to appear in front of the DMSB’s sporting courts in Frankfurt, although an exact timeframe for proceedings is not yet known at this stage.

***In any case, this year’s edition of the Eifel endurance classic will go into the history books as the shortest-ever, as the No. 16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Christopher Mies, Frank Stippler, Ricardo Feller and Dennis Marschall completed 50 laps before the race was ended. The previous record was set in 2021, when Manthey Racing drove 59 laps in a similarly fog-affected race.

***Red Bull Team ABT driver Kelvin van der Linde expressed his disappointment at the decision to not restart the race, telling Sportscar365: “A lot of the drivers, including ourselves, were pushing for them to basically restart the race, but put the Grand Prix circuit under code 120 or code 60. And as soon as you got to the Nordschleife, go racing. At least even for the first two laps, because we saw as soon as we finished the race, even the Grand Prix track was clear.”

***Audi notched up its seventh N24 victory, having last won in 2022. Mies and Stippler, meanwhile, both recorded their third overall victories at the event while co-drivers Feller and Marschall won for the first time.

***Mies and Stippler have now joined compatriots Markus Winkelhock, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Klaus Ludwig and Herbert Hechler on the list of drivers with three wins at the event.

***As less than 75 percent of the full race distance was completed, only half points will be awarded to IGTC’s BMW, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche entries once the provisional result is finalized. Provisionally, Porsche is now at 58.5 points and 21 points clear of Mercedes-AMG in second place. BMW is third on 26 points.

***Laurens Vanthoor and Ayhancan Guven remain atop the drivers’ standings with 37.5 points each, although Mercedes-AMG driver Luca Stolz has moved into second place courtesy of his fourth-place finish aboard the No. 4 Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

***Notably, Arjun Maini’s has been removed from the No. 4 car in the provisional results even though he was entered alongside Stolz, Maximilian Goetz and Daniel Juncadella. A Mercedes-AMG spokesperson told Sportscar365 that Maini was deregistered to avoid disqualification when it became clear that the Indian racer would not be able to complete the minimum driving time.

***Antares Au scored his first Independent Cup points of the season aboard the No. 24 Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3 R and now sits second in the standings behind Prince Jefri Ibrahim. The Hong Kong driver also took the SP9 Pro-Am victory alongside Patrick Kolb, Indy Dontje and Patric Niederhauser in Lionspeed’s first N24 operating without external support.

***Sheldon van der Linde commented that ‘his heart hurts’ after his No. 99 ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 was eliminated in a multi-car incident in the fourth hour that also involved the No. 420 Four Motors GmbH Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 CS and No. 507 Giti Tire Motorsport by WS Racing BMW 1 Series.

***Van der Linde said: “If I were in that situation again, I would do exactly the same thing. I believe the driver in the other car didn’t see me. I was in her blind spot as I passed. I was almost past, and then she hit me on the left rear. Then I hit another car that was completely uninvolved, and that’s how it happened. A racing incident. But at the end of the day, we were out after leading for so long and that hurts, also for the team, which puts so much work into it. We work almost half a year towards a 24-hour race, and then it goes so wrong.”

***Alesia Kreutzpointer, the driver of the No. 420 Porsche, has been stripped of her Nordschleife permit and received a fine of €1500 ($1630 USD) after she was determined to have caused the collision at Fuchsrohe.

***The stewards’ decision document outlining the penalty states that “the stewards consider it proven that the driver was primarily to blame for the collision. It was also assessed the wrong decision to overtake from a misunderstanding of the position and the nearly completed overtaking manoeuvre of car No. 99 in this situation. In the view to the overall situation surrounding this accident, the stewards consider the penalty to be sufficient but also necessary.”

***Both Van der Linde brothers came to Kreutzpointer’s defense and condemned comments targeted at the German racer in the wake of the accident on social media, with Kelvin writing: “Alesia and her sister [Jacqueline] are two strong female drivers waving the flag for gender equality in our sport and instead of spreading hate, we should applaud them for their bravery to take on the hardest and most daunting racetrack in the world.”

***Mercedes-AMG extended its win drought at the N24, having now gone eight editions of the event without taking victory. Its last win to date remains the 2016 triumph for Black Falcon, which was the debut outing for the Mercedes-AMG GT3. Its best car, the No. 4 Haupt Racing Team-entered machine for Stolz, Juncadella and Goetz, finished fourth.

***GetSpeed Performance, meanwhile, endured a troubled race with its two factory-backed entries. Notably, its No. 130 car suffered a puncture after an incident at Antoniusbuche that also involved Vincent Kolb’s No. 5 Herberth Motorsport Porsche and the No. 15 Scherer Sport PHX Audi driven by Feller.

***Feller told Sportscar365: “It was nothing on purpose. I lost a lot of time on the Nordschleife lap with the white Porsche in front of me. I wanted to overtake him on the Dottinger Hohe, but we had to brake at Galgenkopf and then the Lamborghini, the Ferrari and the Mercedes-AMG were there. I just could not see him because we already had the foil for the night on our mirrors. I wanted to get out of this side draft from the Ferrari and get back to the side draft from the Porsche because he was getting faster again and then suddenly the Mercedes was there. So yeah really not on purpose, just unlucky that the race was over for them.”

***Woes for the No. 130 Mercedes-AMG, which Fabian Schiller shared with Maro Engel, Jules Gounon and Adam Christodoulou, would later continue as it suffered from ABS sensor issues and bent steering, while a front right suspension replacement meant it spent a significant amount of time in the garage.

*** The sister No. 8 car, meanwhile retired from the car in the wake of an off-track moment for Christodoulou at Metzgesfeld overnight. The British driver told Sportscar365 that he likely encountered fluid on the track which caused him to go off. When the car returned to the pits, it was discovered that a tube had been knocked off the air filter and the team opted to park the car for fear of damaging the engine.

***Christodoulou apologized to Walkenhorst Motorsport driver David Pittard for their opening lap contact that curtailed a competitive run for the No. 34 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo. “I’m extremely sorry to David,” he told Sportscar365. “I can’t believe that actually that kind of contact took him out of the race. I was on the slick tyre and the reality was, he tried to go around the outside of me and I just slid. I watched the video back, I had an oversteer at that point and just slid into him and it tagged his rear end and spun him around. I can’t believe that such a touch took them out and obviously we seem to continue unscathed at that point.”

***He added: “In the end I like to think that I race hard and fair with everyone and obviously at all points always trying to avoid contact. I hope that we can have some closer racing again in the future, obviously minus the contact.”

***Event organizer ADAC Nordrhein posted a weekend attendance figure of 240,000 spectators, thus beating last year’s number by 5,000.

***The Intercontinental GT Challenge returns with the third round, the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, on June 27-30.