Endurance

24H Nurburgring: Hour 15 update

News and quotes 23.00 to 7.00hrs In the night of 37th ADAC Zurich 24h Race, the battle for the lead was fiercely continued and again and again, the previous leaders lost their lead. But at the end of the night, the situation at the front end of ...

Published: Jun 19, 2009, 7:56 PM

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News and quotes 23.00 to 7.00hrs

In the night of 37th ADAC Zurich 24h Race, the battle for the lead was fiercely continued and again and again, the previous leaders lost their lead. But at the end of the night, the situation at the front end of the field was virtually the same as it had been at its beginning. With 15 hours contested, the leading Phoenix-Audi (#99), the two Manthey Porsches (#1 and #2) and the Abt Audi still were on the same lap. 14 times since the start of the race on Saturday afternoon, a temporary race leader had to accept to have lost his lead to another competitor. Over the course of the night, Uwe Alzen, Sascha Bert, Lance David Arnold and Christopher Mies succeeded in working their way further up and at 07:00hrs, the team held fifth position. On its way up, the squad also benefited from the unscheduled repair works on the Audi R8 LMS #(98) and the Porsche of Jurgen Alzen (#6). Both teams dropped back to now continue as 10th and 12th respectively. While the Reader team's Ford GT (#40) that had impressed in the opening stages of the race and the 'Eifelblitz' (#10) were forced into retirement, in the early morning hours.

At 02:04hrs, the Manthey-Porsche #1 received a three-minute stop-and-go penalty for having ignored the yellow lags at a dangerous spot. Later however, the penalty was withdrawn. Race Director Walter Hornung explained: "During a longer yellow-flags period caused by necessary building works in the NGK chicane we were informed by the marshals that car #1 had gone too fast in this section. Consequently they received -- as stipulated by the regulations -- a three-minute stop-and-go penalty. Then, however, we were contacted by the team and they informed us that their team-internal data recording demonstrated that they had gone slowly, there. And as we have got an ADAC owned data logger we checked the team's data recordings during the next pit stop and found out that they had passed the building site at an acceptable pace, indeed. Therefore, we awarded the team a 3:26-minutes time-credit to compensate them for the lost time. One thing must be mentioned in this context: the marshals have neither got radar guns nor the possibility to check the data recordings. But they realise a subjective peril and that's something I can fully comprehend. Nonetheless, I came to the conclusion that it would have been wrong to do without using the objective measuring devices being at our disposal."

# 6 (Alzen / Menzel / Schwager / Fricke) Porsche 911 GT3
In the night, the Porsche's throttle cable broke two times. Due to the repair works and the following services the team lost about 30 minutes.

# 10 (Viebahn / Forbes / Huisman / Hartung) BMW E46 M3 GTS
05:01hrs: The end of the race for the popular 'Eifelblitz'. Marko Hartung has an accident in the Fuchsrohre section.

# 12 (Renger / Rehfeld / Kissling / Strycek) Chevrolet Corvette C6
00:12hrs: Scheduled gearbox-oil change, car stands for about five minutes.

# 40 (Tilke / Adorf / Hennerici / Mutsch) Ford GT
05:12hrs: Oil-pump failure, no oil pressure. Possible secondary damage in the engine.

# 84 (Brandl / Kratz / Molnar / Ihle) Audi TT S
03:37hrs: Crash-barrier contact in the Kallerhard section. Driver Ihle trudges to the pits. The team finds out that the car is seriously damaged and decides to not repair it and call it a day.

# 98 (Stuck / Biela / Pirro / Fassler) Audi R8 LMS
In the night, the radiator of the Audi R8's servo pump was replaced.

-credit: adac.24h

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