CAFÉ RACER 76: ADAC 24h Nürburgring : BMW wins hot Eifel thriller

What a thriller: Rowe-BMW won the 53rd edition of the ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring and prevailed in an epic duel against the Manthey ‘Grello’. After 141 laps, Brazilian Augusto Farfus, Jesse Krohn from Finland, Swiss Raffaele Marciello and Kelvin van der Linde from South Africa had a 1:17.810-minute lead over the #911 Porsche driven by Frenchman Kevin Estre, Ayhancan Güven from Turkey and Austrian Thomas Preining. Although the ‘Grello’ crew crossed the finish line in first place, they still incurred a time penalty of 1:40 minutes. Manthey had lodged a protest against the penalty, but this was rejected by the stewards shortly before the end of the race.

Third success for Kelvin van der Linde

For Rowe Racing, the triumph is the second overall victory in the ‘Eifel Marathon’ after 2020, and the 21st success for record winner BMW. Kelvin van der Linde, who was the final driver two days after his 29th birthday and fought a fierce duel with pole man Kevin Estre, gave himself the perfect present with his third victory after 2017 and 2022. Augusto Farfus won for the second time since 2010, while Raffaele Marciello and Jesse Krohn won for the first time. Third place ultimately went to the #54 Dinamic Porsche with Bastian Buus (Denmark), Matteo Cairoli (Italy), Loek Hartog (Netherlands) and Joel Sturm.

Rowe team boss Hans-Peter Naundorf said: "Things looked very different for us on Thursday. We had completely different thoughts. But of course you always want to win. Today, it wasn't the fastest car that won, but the team that made the fewest mistakes. That was us and we are proud of that."

Early focus on a duel between Porsche and BMW

While the ‘Grello’ pulled away from the field directly after the start from pole position and was in the lead for what felt like the entire race, the Rowe-BMW had to work its way up first. But Farfus made up seven places on the first lap as the starting driver, and Kelvin van der Linde moved up another six positions in the first two laps after the restart. After the #33 Falken-Porsche, which had been in second place at one point, had unfortunately retired in the evening following an accident through no fault of its own, the #1 Scherer-Audi, the defending champion, had retired early and both Getspeed-Mercedes-AMGs had to retire with technical problems, everything came down to a duel between the ‘Grello’ and the BMW at an early stage.

Final act with Kevin Estre and Kelvin van der Linde

After 100 laps, both cars ran into a Dörr-Aston Martin in a Code 60 phase. Kevin Estre in the Porsche made contact with it while lapping, the Aston Martin spun into the crash barrier, was catapulted back onto the track and overturned. Raffaele Marciello in the Rowe BMW was only just able to get out of the way. Race control imposed a time penalty of 1:40 minutes on the ‘Grello’ for this action, but Manthey lodged a protest. On the track, Augusto Farfus took advantage of an unfortunate Code 60 phase of the ‘Grello’ on lap 114, then sucked up on the Döttinger Höhe and took the lead for the first time in the race. Seven laps later, the Manthey Porsche reclaimed first place at the next pit stop and set the scene for a thrilling final duel between Kevin Estre and Kelvin van der Linde.

Power failure instead of fog - race interruption nonetheless

On Saturday afternoon, the race was interrupted for the tenth time in the history of the 24h Nürburgring - and, unusually for the Eifel, this time the cause was not rain or fog, but a major power failure. A defective refrigeration system, responsible for controlling and cooling the air conditioning units in large parts of the pit building, overheated because an unusually high cooling capacity was required in the summer temperatures. Once the problem had been rectified, the race was reopened at 19:45 after a break of around 2:15 hours.

Midsummer in the Eifel pushes man and material to their limits

For the first time since 2001, it remained dry in the Eifel for the entire week of the event. Temperatures of up to 30 degrees centigrade attracted more spectators than ever before, but also pushed man and material to their limits both on and off the track. There were many collisions, some of them serious, but all the drivers involved were largely uninjured.