The 2010 24 Hours of Nürburgring was an endurance sports car race held at the
Nürburgring Nordschleife race track in Germany on May 13–16.
The event saw the return of most prominent entries, except the Ford GT, as team Raeder had discontinued this project. To give teams time to rest or for repairs before the race, the night practice was scheduled on Thursday evening. In cold and wet conditions, the Farnbacher-entered
Ferrari F430
The Ferrari F430 (Type F131) is a sports car produced by the Italian automobile manufacturer Ferrari from 2004 until 2009 as a successor to the Ferrari 360. The car is an update to the 360 with exterior and performance changes. It was unveiled a ...
GTC set the best lap time before the session was red-flagged due to fog. In Friday afternoon qualifying, held in fair weather, it crashed out and was barely repaired in time for the race. Four of the five factory-backed Audi R8 LMS (officially entered by "customers", which happened to be the Audi-DTM-teams
Phoenix Racing and
Abt Sportsline
Abt Sportsline is an auto racing and auto tuning company based in Kempten im Allgäu, Germany. Abt mainly deals with Audi and the related primary Volkswagen Group brands—Volkswagen, Škoda, and SEAT—modifying them by using sports-type su ...
) occupied the first four places on the grid, with
Marco Werner
Marco Werner (born April 27, 1966) is a professional racer from Germany. Born in Dortmund, he was the eighth driver to complete the informal triple crown in endurance racing. In his early career, Werner finished runner-up in the Formula Opel Eur ...
setting pole at 8:24.753 with a new record average speed of . With lap times around 8:29, three of Porsche's new SP9/GT3-class cars occupied places 5 to 7, two of them entered by four-time winner Team Manthey, which had chosen to let the #1 car do only a single lap. BMW had entered two of their ALMS
BMW M3 GT2
The BMW M3 is a high-performance version of the BMW 3 Series, developed by BMW's in-house motorsport division, BMW M, BMW M GmbH. M3 models have been produced for every generation of 3 Series since the E30 M3 was introduced in 1986.
The initia ...
, run by
Schnitzer Motorsport
Schnitzer Motorsport was a motorsport team based in Freilassing near Munich, Germany. From the early days of its establishment, the team mostly operated an auto racing, automobile racing squad for BMW, and had remarkable results in touring car rac ...
. Due to the modifications that include a
transaxle
A transaxle is single mechanical device which combines the functions of an automobile's transmission (mechanics), transmission, axle, and differential (mechanics), differential into one integrated assembly. It can be produced in both manual tra ...
gear box, they do not comply with the standard rules set of SP classes and their "Balance of Performance". Along with a factory-entered Porsche GT3 Hybrid, the GT2-BMWs have thus been grouped into the E1-XP class for experimental factory entries. The better BMW and the Hybrid posted times of 8:32 and 8:34 in qualifying. Save for the 16th placed GT3-class Dodge Viper, only several other Porsche, Audi R8 and V8-powered
BMW Z4 GT3 have qualified in the top 20, with times up to 8:47, which earns them a blue flashlight that is supposed to facilitate passing of the approx. 180 slower cars.
Porsche test driver
Walter Röhrl
Walter Röhrl (; born 7 March 1947) is a German rally and auto racing driver, with victories for Fiat, Opel, Lancia and Audi as well as Porsche, Ford and BMW. Röhrl had 14 victories over his career, with his notable achievements including winnin ...
had intended to enter on a standard road legal Porsche 911 GT3 RS, but had to withdraw for health reasons from the team that comprises racers
Roland Asch
Roland Asch (born 12 October 1950) is a German race car driver from Ammerbuch, near Stuttgart. He was a distinctive figure on the German motor racing scene in the 1990s.
Racing career
Asch's career started in 1973 with slalom before moving ...
and
Patrick Simon, plus journalists
Horst von Saurma and Chris Harris. The car, entered in cooperation with
sport auto (Germany)
''sport auto'' is a German automobile magazine, established in 1969, published monthly by Motor Presse Stuttgart, based in Stuttgart.
The magazine publishes its "Supertest" of cars, featuring the laptime at the Nordschleife. Until 2015 almost al ...
, is registered as S-GO 2400, and was driven from Weissach to Nürburg. It has qualified with 9:15, 42nd overall, and 9th
among the 17 SP7 class entrants, only beaten by its race-prepped Porsche 997 siblings.
The race was started on Saturday 3 p.m. in sunny but cold weather. Already on the Grand Prix track, the #1 Manthey Porsche driven by five-time winner
Marcel Tiemann
Marcel Tiemann (born 19 March 1974) is a former racing driver from Germany. He is best known for being a five-time winner of the 24 Hours Nürburgring race with Opel and Porsche.
Career Early series
Tiemann started his career in Formula König b ...
passed all Audis, taking the lead and pulling away about before catching up in lap 2 with the slowest cars of the third group, which were still in their first lap. After lap 3, three Porsche lead ahead of three Audi, a BMW M3 and the Hybrid-Porsche, which due to its larger range could take the lead after the others pitted. The #1 Manthey Porsche led by a couple of minutes until it got involved in a collision after seven hours. At halftime, the race is on pace to another distance record, with the Audi #99 leading by a small margin ahead of the Hybrid Porsche, the only remaining representative of his brand in the top 8, which used to be dominated by Porsche in recent years. Places three to eight were occupied by three Audi R8, two BMW, and, rather surprisingly, on p 5 the Ferrari which had started in row 21. The Porsches that occupy most places up to 15th were followed by the
CNG
Compressed natural gas (CNG) is a fuel gas mainly composed of methane (CH4), compressed to less than 1% of the volume it occupies at standard atmospheric pressure. It is stored and distributed in hard containers at a pressure of , usually in c ...
-powered
Volkswagen Scirocco GT24, the road-legal Porsche GT3 RS and a
Nissan Z33
:
The Nissan 350Z (known as Nissan Fairlady Z (Z33) in Japan) is a two-door, two-seater sports car that was manufactured by Nissan Motor Corporation from 2002 until 2009 and marks the fifth generation of Nissan's Z-car line. The 350Z entered prod ...
. On Sunday morning, the #99 Audi needed a rear axle change, and with less than 5 hours to go, also the second place #2 Audi failed. This left the Hybrid Porsche in a one lap lead ahead of the #25 BMW GT2 with gearbox woes and the Ferrari, until also the Porsche stopped with less than two hours to go. The BMW made it to the finish, giving
Pedro Lamy
José Pedro Mourão Nunes Lamy Viçoso, OIH, known as Pedro Lamy (; born 20 March 1972), is a Portuguese former professional racing driver. He was the first Portuguese driver to score a point in a Formula One World Championship event, in the ...
a record-tying fifth win ahead of Ferrari and Audi. The best Porsche, entered by Alzen, finished only sixth, six laps ahead of the Falken Nissan and the road legal GT3.
The SP4 class was won by 4 Argentinian drivers in the BMW 325i E92 Coupe of Motorsport Tea
Sorg Rennsport This was the first victory for an Argentinian team at the 24 hours Nürburgring race and the first Argentinian team to compete in the Nürburgring since Juan Manuel Fangio.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:2010 24 Hours of Nurburgring
Nurburgring
Nürburgring 24 Hours
May 2010 sports events in Germany