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Written by Ollie Kew
The Ring always plays its part. Last year, the microclimate that hangs over the Eifel mountains intervened within the first hour, smothering the circuit in rain and hail, stranding slick-shod GT3 cars halfway round the 25km lap. This year, it waited until the very final half-hour of the N rburgring 24 Hours to start messing with the driversIt"d all started in the glare of glorious sunshine too, with the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus 003 prototype taking a very popular pole position after posting an 8min 15.427sec lap. That was as good as the weekend got for Glickenhaus and co, though during the first round of back-marker lapping early in the race, the lead yellow machine was tagged by a lowly hatchback and suffered damage that cost it the lead. It and its sister car soldiered on but one half of the duo would later meet the barrier in a nasty-looking tank-slapper and retire spectacularly.Audi"s R8 LMSs charged into a dominant lead, showing pace they simply couldn"t find last year. The growling Mercedes-AMG GT3s, so unassailable at last year"s N24 taking a 1-2-3 finish, had no answer for the V10 pace. Apparently, the cars simply weren"t as good in the 35-degree Celcius heat. A pity for AMG, celebrating its 50th birthday at the race this weekend, but good news for anyone who likes an Audi/BMW grudge match.As the sun mercifully dipped below the horizon on Saturday evening all signs pointed to a straight fight between the hard-charging R8 LMSs and a brace of evil-looking M6 GT3s.Into the night, the N24 stops being simply a very attritional endurance motor race and morphs into a kind of small-scale war for drunken German viewing pleasure. Street-standard Clios and 3 Series" piloted by amateurs are expected to jump out the way of 300,000 supercars fighting for a VLN championship. In order to show their appreciation for the duels and tactics on display, the tens of thousands of spectators, camped out in the woods around the lap, set off fireworks, flares and drank enough Weiss bier to refloat the Titanic. It"s a surreal, cultist place, like nowhere else on Earth. Once in your petrolhead life, make the pilgrimage to an N24. You"re guaranteed some dramaA sweltering, sticky sun rose on an N24 still being contested by 100 cars, led by the green and white no.29 Audi R8 LMS of Team Land Motorsport. It hadn"t had a pretty race. It"d had a spin while leading after grabbing too much kerb, and a tag with a back-marker caused scarring to the rear nearside and required some highly technical patching up with duct tape. But it was still running hard, lapping consistently, and it appeared that as long as it didn"t fall foul of a forecast thunderstorm in the final hour of the race, Audi would restore R8 supremacy to the Nordschliefe.In the pits, plenty of folks turned their attention to their smartphones, catching up on the (lack of) action at the Monaco grand prix. As the sultry morning turned into a downright tropical afternoon, and droves of zombified walking hangovers emerged from the forest, it seemed like we were all set for an uncharacteristically routine finish.Right up until the moment the commentators on the tannoys and livestreams starting barking feverishly tense German. It appeared the lead no.29 Audi R8 was slowing, crawling at walking pace around the GP circuit. The headlights that"d blazed through the night were flickering a tell-tale sign the driver was punching every single button in the cockpit in a desperate effort to make the car reset itself. The old turn it off/turn it on again even works on racecars. It all looked eerily similar to the cruel demise of the Toyota LMP1 effort at Le Mans last year, which handed victory to Porsche"s 919.
Date written: 31 May 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 7975
The Ring always plays its part. Last year, the microclimate that hangs over the Eifel mountains intervened within the first hour, smothering the circuit in rain and hail, stranding slick-shod GT3 cars halfway round the 25km lap. This year, it waited until the very final half-hour of the N rburgring 24 Hours to start messing with the driversIt"d all started in the glare of glorious sunshine too, with the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus 003 prototype taking a very popular pole position after posting an 8min 15.427sec lap. That was as good as the weekend got for Glickenhaus and co, though during the first round of back-marker lapping early in the race, the lead yellow machine was tagged by a lowly hatchback and suffered damage that cost it the lead. It and its sister car soldiered on but one half of the duo would later meet the barrier in a nasty-looking tank-slapper and retire spectacularly.Audi"s R8 LMSs charged into a dominant lead, showing pace they simply couldn"t find last year. The growling Mercedes-AMG GT3s, so unassailable at last year"s N24 taking a 1-2-3 finish, had no answer for the V10 pace. Apparently, the cars simply weren"t as good in the 35-degree Celcius heat. A pity for AMG, celebrating its 50th birthday at the race this weekend, but good news for anyone who likes an Audi/BMW grudge match.As the sun mercifully dipped below the horizon on Saturday evening all signs pointed to a straight fight between the hard-charging R8 LMSs and a brace of evil-looking M6 GT3s.Into the night, the N24 stops being simply a very attritional endurance motor race and morphs into a kind of small-scale war for drunken German viewing pleasure. Street-standard Clios and 3 Series" piloted by amateurs are expected to jump out the way of 300,000 supercars fighting for a VLN championship. In order to show their appreciation for the duels and tactics on display, the tens of thousands of spectators, camped out in the woods around the lap, set off fireworks, flares and drank enough Weiss bier to refloat the Titanic. It"s a surreal, cultist place, like nowhere else on Earth. Once in your petrolhead life, make the pilgrimage to an N24. You"re guaranteed some dramaA sweltering, sticky sun rose on an N24 still being contested by 100 cars, led by the green and white no.29 Audi R8 LMS of Team Land Motorsport. It hadn"t had a pretty race. It"d had a spin while leading after grabbing too much kerb, and a tag with a back-marker caused scarring to the rear nearside and required some highly technical patching up with duct tape. But it was still running hard, lapping consistently, and it appeared that as long as it didn"t fall foul of a forecast thunderstorm in the final hour of the race, Audi would restore R8 supremacy to the Nordschliefe.In the pits, plenty of folks turned their attention to their smartphones, catching up on the (lack of) action at the Monaco grand prix. As the sultry morning turned into a downright tropical afternoon, and droves of zombified walking hangovers emerged from the forest, it seemed like we were all set for an uncharacteristically routine finish.Right up until the moment the commentators on the tannoys and livestreams starting barking feverishly tense German. It appeared the lead no.29 Audi R8 was slowing, crawling at walking pace around the GP circuit. The headlights that"d blazed through the night were flickering a tell-tale sign the driver was punching every single button in the cockpit in a desperate effort to make the car reset itself. The old turn it off/turn it on again even works on racecars. It all looked eerily similar to the cruel demise of the Toyota LMP1 effort at Le Mans last year, which handed victory to Porsche"s 919.
Date written: 31 May 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 7975
