24h NURBURGRING

Audi again

After the best known 24h of motor sports, maybe the 24h hardest. The Nurburgring test is one of the toughest in the world due to the requirement of the mythical German track that is traversed for 24 hours.
The work of Phoenix Racing gave the fifth victory to Audi in eight years in the 24 hours of Nurbugring. It looked like Porsche would smile again, just like it did last year, but the Porsche # 911 from Manthey Racing was penalized near the end, ending their chances of winning.
Kevin Estre, Michael Christensen, Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor led almost 14 hours of testing and appeared to be on their way to an unassailable victory but had to settle for second place after a penalty for exceeding the speed limit under yellow flags who gave the much-desired victory to the Audi of Dries Vanthoor, Pierre Kaffer, Frank Stippler and Fréderic Vervisch. Another of the top candidates appeared to be the Black Falcon # 2 Mercedes that traded several times in position with the Porsche # 911, but one incident threw the car out of the fight. Black Falcon had several cars battling for the podium but it was really # 3 (Maxi Buhk, Hubert Haupt, Thomas Jager, Luca Stolz) to get the bronze.
Porsche # 1, who won last year had the bad luck on their side and a series of complications removed him from the fight for the reconquest of the trophy. But the champions of chance were even the BMW cars. The machines at Walkenhorst Motorsport, ROWE Racing and Schnitzer have had several problems and have sidelined the Bavarian brand of fighting. Some say it was punishment from the race gods for having finished with the Le Mans project.
Tiago Monteiro was also outstanding winning his category (TCR). The Portuguese rider had an excellent performance at the wheel of a Honda Civic, a machine that has frequently used this track in order to gain shape and more experience with this type of cars. Victory to the class is a prize more than deserved for our pilot, who after the ordeal of injury and recovery, gets a very tasty trophy on a track where he was not even very Lucky.

Fábio Mendes, de Portugal