Scherer Sport PHX Porsche Sweeps N24 Qualifiers

Factory Porsche star Laurens Vanthoor and Patric Niederhauser earned a clean sweep of victories in a rain-affected weekend of Nürburgring 24 qualifying races aboard the No. 16 Scherer Sport PHX Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Vanthoor and Niederhauser kicked off the weekend with a dominant win in Saturday’s opening four-hour race, held in treacherous conditions, before repeating the feat on Sunday in another encounter in which tire strategy proved key.

They led an all-Porsche podium in the second race ahead of the No. 33 Falken Motorsports car of Julien Andlauer and Alessio Picariello and the No. 911 Manthey EMA machine of Kevin Estre and Patrick Pilet, who were second in the opener.

Only the No. 14 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 shared by Maxime Martin, Fabian Schiller and Luca Stolz prevented a complete whitewash of the podium by 911 crews in both races by finishing third in Saturday’s race.

Estre had qualified the ‘Grello’ Manthey Porsche on pole for Saturday’s race, and held the lead initially in the heavy rain, while Vanthoor, Andlauer and the No. 8 Juta Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Frank Stippler squabbled over second.

Andlauer became one of the highest-profile drivers to fall foul of the conditions when he crashed the No. 33 Falken Porsche at the Hohenrain chicane, while Estre and Stippler began to struggle with tire pressures as the conditions worsened.

That paved the way for Vanthoor to move into the lead, with Niederhauser bringing the No. 16 car home two minutes and 29 seconds clear of the Manthey Porsche.

Besides the third-placed GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG, only one other car finished on the lead lap, which was the No. 54 Dinamic GT Porsche of Bastian Buus, Loek Hartog and Joel Sturm, with the fifth-placed No. 44 Falken Porsche driven by Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific Selected driver Dorian Boccolacci and Nico Menzel a lap down.

Such were the conditions that the No. 830 Hyundai Elantra N TCR, with its front-wheel drive, managed to finish ninth overall of the 84 classified finishers.

Qualifying for Sunday’s race took place in wet conditions, with Estre setting the initial pace in the ‘Grello’ Porsche again, only for a repair to a wheel bearing taking too long preventing the car from taking part in Top Qualifying.

That meant Schiller grabbed pole in the GetSpeed Mercedes, but a drying track meant both Schiller and Niederhauser in the Scherer PHX Porsche were among a larger number of drivers to change from wet tires to slicks at the end of the first lap.

As the race progressed and lap times improved, it was clear that the No. 16 car had winning pace, setting a best lap more than three seconds up on the competition, with Vanthoor surviving another last-lap rain shower to take the win.

Andlauer had to pass the No. 14 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG, now in the hands of Martin, to grab second place for himself and Falken teammate Picariello, while Estre and Pilet recovered from starting at the back of the first group to claim third, their progressed helped by the fact Estre was able to pit for slicks on the formation lap.

Martin, Schiller and Stolz had to be content with fourth after a 33-second time penalty for not respecting the minimum pit lane time, followed by the No. 27 Abt Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 driven by Christian Engelhart, Daniel Juncadella and Marco Mapelli.

Ferrari’s sole representative, the No. 45 Kondo Racing by Rinaldi entry of David Perel, Thomas Neubauer and Felipe Fernandez Laser, finished eighth on Sunday.

That matched the best result for an Audi, which came on Saturday courtesy of Stippler and his Juta teammates ‘SELV’, Elia Erhart and Alexey Veremenko.

RESULTS: Race 1/Race 2