This coming weekend is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to watching motor racing. Pivoting from Pike’s Peak in America, the legendary 24 Hours of Nürburgring will also be taking place.
As 24 Hour endurance racing goes, the Nürburgring 24 is a very different animal from Le Mans. Of course, it’s an obvious destination for cars supported by Audi Sport customer racing – cars such as the R8 LMS GT3 and RS 3 LMS TCR. However, Nürburgring also has a long tradition of approachable privateer subclasses that take the idea of the “gentleman driver” to a whole other level of approachability.
Those more entry-level classes have thinned out a bit more over the years, culling the herd of some of the generationally older competitive vehicles. That presents a challenge, but not an impossibility and so we see cars like the #480 current-generation Audi S3 sedan that is not an Audi Sport customer racing homologated car.
At the front of the field we see Scherer Sport PHX and their returning R8 LMS GT3 evo II. You’ll notice it’s wearing the #1, meaning it is the recurring victor. In between these two are a mix of six Audis on the grid, a collection primarily made up of the R8 LMS GT3s (4 ea.), with an RS 3 LMS TCR and that aforementioned S3 taking part.
THIS YEAR’S AUDI CARS IN COMPETITION AT NÜRBURGRING
#1 Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II
Class: SP 9
Drivers: Christopher Haase, Luca Ludwig, Markus Winkelhock
#8 JUTA Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II
Class: SP 9
Drivers: Alexey Veremenko, SELV, Elia Erhart, Pierre Kaffer
#50 équipe vitesse Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II
Class: SP 9
Drivers: Michael Heimrich, Lorenzo Rocco di Torrepadula, Eric Ullström, Arno Klasen
#84 Eastalent Racing Team Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II
Class: SP 9
Drivers: Simon Reicher, Christian Klien, Norbert Siedler, Max Hofer
#480 Dupré Motorsport Audi S3 Sedan
Class: VT2 Front
Drivers: Christoph Dupré, Jürgen Nett, Joachim Nett
#776 Goroyan RT by Sharky Racing Audi RS 3 LMS TCR
Class: TCR
Drivers: Artur Goroyan, Danny Brink, Roman Mavlanov, Nathanel Berthon
See all vehicles competing in this year’s race HERE.
EVENT SCHEDULE
The 24 Horus of Nürburgring grid begins at 14:10 local time, with the race start beginning at 16:00 (4PM) local, 10AM Eastern Standard Time in the U.S.
HOW TO FOLLOW THE COMPETITION FROM HOMEhow
Watch the 24 Hours of Nürburgring via the ADAC Ravenol 24h Nürburgring YouTube channel HERE.