24h Qualification Race 2018 Nürburgring
The VLN teams have left their mark on the Qualifikationsrennen ADAC Zurüch 24h Race. The Mercedes AMG Team Black Falcon with local heroes from Meuspath near the Nürburgring took the win with its nr.5 AMG GT3 of Yelmer Buurman, Thomas Jager and Jan Seyffarth in the six-hour 2018 Qualifikationsrennen for the upcoming Nurburgring 24 Hours. After 41 laps of racing over the 25.378 kilometres long combination on the gruelling Nurburgring Nordschleife they took the win and dominated the race at the Green Hell in Germany.
Read more 97 photos 13/05/2018
Photos of this race:
Nurburgring Nordschleife Qualifying Race also known as Qualifikationsrennen
The winning margin was just 2.158, Buurman chased down by the ROWE Racing BMW M6 GT3 with the driver duo Martin Tomczyk and Nicky Catsburg after the final stops, and with two laps to go. Catsburg though, was unable to make a move, and instead settled for a second place finish for himself and teammate Martin Tomczyk. It was an incredibly hard and exhausting fight. In particular when there was some traffic in the last two laps. Nicky Catsburg was right behind me, bumper to bumper all of a sudden explained Buurman after the race. We had a bit more luck in overtaking some cars that were a lap down and secured are position until the finish. Prior to that it appeared that the fight for the win would be between the Black Falcon crew and the nr.912 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R. But the team was handed a penalty for a Code 60 violation and it fell down the order to seventh, leaving the ROWE crew to pick up the challenge. “That was a fantastic race,” said Catsburg. “I was driving that much as Martin and I had shared two cars for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to get past Yelmer anymore, but I was very close to it.”
The decision about third position was only made in rollercoaster final lap. In the end, Edoardo Mortara, Christian Hohenadel, Dominik Baumann and Daniel Juncadella occupied this final place on the podium. After an exciting final push, the HTP-Mercedes-AMG GT3 with start number 47 forced their way past the WRT-Audi R8 LMS of Robin Frijns, which eventually came home sixth, the latter having started from pole position. Ahead of the Audi was the factory nr.7 Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3, and the SP-X class-winning Glickenhaus driven by 2017 N24 pole-sitter Jeff Westphal at the end. 91 cars were on the starting grid for the
prologue of the 24h classical long-distance race. The top teams underlined their ambitions from the very beginning of the race: Similar to a sprint race, eight teams were involved in an open battle the outcome of which was not decided until the very end. Apart from the pole setters, the Individual Sports Car SCG003C of the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus and the Aston Martin Vintage GT3 (car no. 7) collected some kilometres of leading the race at the longest and most demanding race track of the world, just as the Manthey-Porsche 911 GT3 R with car no. 912 and the second Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Black Falcon with number 4.
