Report: Once Ballermann and back

They’re back – the fans and the mood at the 50th edition of the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring was completely different. The organizers speak of 230,000 spectators on the race weekend and are more than satisfied with that. But that wasn’t even enough for first place at the international motorsport events this weekend. At the parallel Indianapolis 500, there was not only a show like no other around the spectacular high-speed oval in the US state of Indiana, but also more than 380,000 spectators. However, this did not bother most people in the Eifel. Since the beginning of the week, they have been celebrating the return to the much-loved normality of the 24-hour race, which is considered one of the toughest touring car races on the annual motorsport calendar. This is not so much due to the high-tech sports cars, but mainly to the 25.3-kilometer route and the countless competition classes. In the Green Hell around the Nürburg, there is not only competition between the upgraded GT3 cars from Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche or Mercedes, but also the fight against all kinds of freak weather, the impregnable Nordschleife or the countless slower vehicles such as old VW Golf II, Dacia Logan or Ford Mustang. Where does a bright red Mini John Cooper Works fight for every inch of asphalt against an Opel Astra OPC or a Mercedes AMG GT3? The 24-hour race, with its unique sections such as Hohe Acht, Döttingerhöhe or the Karussell and the character of a historic country road without run-off zones, is a slope like no other – with thousands of celebrating fans, the spring break or a Ballermann tour for an excursion into the school hostel.

The atmosphere at the race in the Eifel is unique and the fans are at least as important as the track or the racing cars themselves. For two years, due to the pandemic, there was only a sluggish basic program without applause, fragrant grilled sausages, beer and bawling from the campsites. The expectations of the fans were correspondingly high this year, in which Corona had almost completely receded into the background. The 50th edition was to be something very special and, above all, it was once again a race that lasted 24 hours and was not interrupted for hours by fog or rain. BMW wanted to celebrate the 50th birthday of its M GmbH sports car department at the 50th edition of the 24-hour race, but had nothing to do with the outcome of the race after a promising start. It was the same with Porsche, who had only traveled to the Nordschleife with a comparatively manageable effort anyway. In the meantime, brands like Hyundai and Toyota seem to have discovered the party event more than the European brands with motorsport history. However, the two top Porsche 911 vehicles – above all the green and yellow crowd favorite “Grello” from the Manthey team – retired from the race all too early with accidents. They had already played no role in qualifying, when Ferrari driver Luca Ludwig made the German works teams look old with his 488 GT3.

After a quick but largely accident-free start phase, things really got going on Saturday evening before nightfall. It was surprising that it wasn’t the favorites from Audi, BMW, Porsche or Mercedes that set the number of strokes in the race around the clock, but rather the GT3 cars from Ferrari, Lamborghini or Aston Martin drove into the limelight. In a very hard-fought race, many of the top favorites said goodbye to the title fight more with accidents than with technical defects. The field, which was already manageable with 135 participants, thinned out faster than most had expected. Once upon a time, 160 to over 200 vehicles took part in the 24-hour race.

After the largely rainless night, it was clear that Audi and Mercedes-AMG would battle it out for overall victory at the anniversary event. When the rain finally struck in the green Eifel, the decision was made and while many thousands of visitors left the well-filled grandstands and campsites, the Audi R8 LMS of the Phoenix team won the 50th edition of the Eifel classic and won the Drivers Kelvin van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, Frederic Vervisch and Robin Frijns are almost a minute ahead of the two Mercedes works teams with the fast AMG GT3s from Getspeed with Maximilian Götz, Fabian Schiller as well as Adam Christodoulou, Maro Engel, Jules Gounon and Dani Juncadella . “This victory is particularly important because the changing conditions, especially in the final phase, required good nerves – from the drivers on the track as well as from the mechanics, engineers and strategists in the pits,” says Chris Reinke, responsible for customer racing at Audi, “the fact that fans were finally allowed to go to the track again and turned this race weekend into one big party makes the success particularly valuable.”