Race report
Endurance 24 Hours of Nurburgring
Nurburgring 24h: Audi wins after late penalty for Porsche
Audi Team Phoenix secured its fifth win in the Nurburgring 24 Hours after the Porsche that dominated most of the race was hit with a big penalty in the closing stages.
Mark Bremer
Edited: Jun 23, 2019, 3:33 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Dries Vanthoor brought the #4 Team Phoenix Audi R8 LMS to the chequered flag after the squad completed 157 laps around the 25km track.
The young Belgian kept a furious Kevin Estre in the #911 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R at bay in the last hour of the race after that car was hit with a big time penalty.
Dramatic scenes in the final hours of the 47th running of the big race shook the running order up.
The #911 Manthey Porsche was leading in comfortable fashion when it was hit with a stop-and-hold penalty of 5m32s for speeding in a 120km/h speed zone and ignoring double yellow flags.
Laurens Vanthoor, who was driving at the time of the infringement, completed the zone with a speed of 172km/h.
After Michael Christensen served the penalty, Vanthoor took over and dropped originally to fourth place, but dramas for several frontrunners meant Vanthoor was soon back in second.
The #29 Team Land Audi initially took the lead but Kelvin van der Linde hit trouble on lap 139 because of a flat tyre, which shredded the back end of the car and caused problems to the cooling system. Van der Linde was unable to bring the car back.
The third-placed #6 Black Falcon Mercedes then also lost touch with the leaders when Nico Bastian crashed the car at Wippermann.
It gave the lead on the 141st lap to the #4 Phoenix Audi of Vanthoor, Pierre Kaffer, Frank Stippler and Frederic Vervisch, and Vanthoor kept Estre behind in the final hour of the race to seal victory.
Estre finished comfortably in second in the #911 machine he shared with Laurens Vanthoor, Michael Christensen and Earl Bamber, with Hubert Haupt bringing home the #3 Black Falcon Mercedes in third place for himself, Maxi Buhk, Thomas Jager and Luca Stolz.
Christopher Haase came quite a bit short of a podium in the #14 Car Collection Audi he shared with Markus Winkelhock, Marcel Fassler and Rene Rast, who were also hit by time penalty in the penultimate hour of the race.
The #12 Frikadelli Porsche of Matteo Cairoli, Otto Klohs, Lars Kern and Dennis Olsen finished in P5 and took the win in Pro-Am.
BMW endured a shocking race after it lost five of its six protagonists for the win in the opening half of the race. The lone surviving M6 GT3 of Falken Motorsport ended up in sixth place.
Fabian Vettel, the younger brother of former Formula 1 world champion Sebastian, brought the #18 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 home in seventh, in front of the second Phoenix Racing Audi.
The swansong outing for the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG003C resulted in ninth, while Nissan rounded out the top 10, despite both the KCMG-run cars hitting trouble overnight. The #45 Kondo Racing GT-R was the lone survivor for the Japanese manufacturer.
After briefly leading in the second hour of the race, the #1 Manthey Racing Porsche was confirmed a retirement early on Sunday morning. The car suffered a flat tyre which dropped it to 30th place in only its second stint.
After repairs it came back on track and was cruising just outside of the top 10 when it was involved in another incident which put the car driven by Richard Lietz, Nick Tandy, Fred Makowiecki and Patrick Pilet out of the race.
The #48 Team HTP Mercedes that was second with six hours remaining was eliminated when Maxi Gotz hit the barriers with a little over five hours to go, while the #31 Frikadelli Porsche that had also been in the top three retired after suffering a tyre failure.
Race results (top 10):
Pos. # Class Drivers Car Laps Pits 1 4 SP 9 
Pierre Kaffer
Frank Stippler
Frederic Vervisch
Dries Vanthoor Audi R8 LMS 157 20 2 911 SP 9 
Earl Bamber
Michael Christensen
Kevin Estre
Laurens Vanthoor Porsche 911 GT3 R (991 II) 156 19 3 3 SP 9 Maxi Buhk
Hubert Haupt
Thomas Jager
Luca Stolz Mercedes-AMG GT3 156 20 4 14 SP 9 Markus Winkelhock
Christopher Haase
Marcel Fassler
Rene Rast Audi R8 LMS 156 20 5 12 SP 9 Otto Klohs
Lars Kern
Dennis Olsen
Matteo Cairoli Porsche 911 GT3 R 155 18 6 33 SP 9 
Peter Dumbreck
Stef Dusseldorp
Alexandre Imperatori
Jens Klingmann BMW M6 GT3 155 20 7 18 SP 9 Fabian Vettel
Philip Ellis
Luca Ludwig
Jules Szymkowiak Mercedes-AMG GT3 155 20 8 5 SP 9 Jeroen Bleekemolen
Vincent Kolb
Kim-Luis Schramm
Frank Stippler Audi R8 LMS 154 20 9 705 SP-X Thomas Mutsch
Felipe Fernandez-Laser
Franck Mailleux
Andreas Simonsen SCG 003C 154 20 10 45 SP 9 Tom Coronel
Mitsunori Takaboshi
Tomonobu Fujii
Tsugio Matsuda Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 154 19
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Nurburgring 24h: Porsche stays in front of Mercedes
Next article Vanthoor: “Stupid” mistake spoiled “flawless” Nurburgring run
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Mark Bremer
Toyota wins appeal against five-hour Dakar penalty for de Villiers
Dakar
Dakar
Dakar
Toyota wins appeal against five-hour Dakar penalty for de Villiers
De Villiers hit with Dakar penalty after bike rider collision
Dakar
Dakar
Dakar
De Villiers hit with Dakar penalty after bike rider collision
Assen has "no worries" about losing 2020 MotoGP race
MotoGP
MotoGP
Dutch TT
Assen has "no worries" about losing 2020 MotoGP race
Latest news
Audi hands F3 runner-up Freddie Slater F1 practice debut
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
United States GP
17 min
Audi hands F3 runner-up Freddie Slater F1 practice debut
On this day: Fernando Alonso wins the world title, Michael Schumacher retires from F1
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Brazilian GP
1 h
On this day: Fernando Alonso wins the world title, Michael Schumacher retires from F1
Raul Fernandez still compromised after Indonesia finger injury: “I’m not at 100%”
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Australian GP
2 h
Raul Fernandez still compromised after Indonesia finger injury: “I’m not at 100%”
MotoGP can’t simply copy F1’s Drive to Survive success – Chase Carey
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Australian GP
3 h
MotoGP can’t simply copy F1’s Drive to Survive success – Chase Carey
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe