Porsche And Audi Round Out Top 5 In Nurburgring 24 Hours - IS-F and LF-A Cross At 81st and 87th

At the end of an epic battle in front of a huge crowd of 235,000 spectators, the record winners of the past three years also prevailed in the 37th edition of the ADAC Zurich 24h Race: Timo Bernhard, Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Marcel Tiemann won the race with their Manthey-Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RSR on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. With 155th laps completed in the ‘Green Hell’, they crossed the finish line as winners, followed by Christian Abt, Jean-Francois Hemroulle, Pierre Kaffer and Lucas Luhr who finished runner-up, with their Abt Sportsline Audi R8 LMS. In a hard fought race, Team Principal Olaf Manthey celebrated his fourth consecutive win, thus adding another triumph to his unique streak of success. At the same time, Marcel Tiemann even celebrated his fifth Nürburgring 24h Race win and now is the most successful driver in the history of the classic endurance-racing event. Furthermore, the Manthey-Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S raced by Emmanuel Collard, Wolf Henzler, Richard Lietz and Dirk Werner also made it to the podium by finishing third.

“That’s just fantastic,” beamed Marcel Tiemann when the race at the Nürburgring was over. “Manthey Racing and I have made history, today. My fifth win! I just can’t believe it. It means even more to me than my maiden Nürburgring 24h Race triumph. And it’s another corner stone for me to have made it to the top position in the 24h-race record book.” Team Principal Olaf Manthey returned the compliments of his most successful driver. “I’m extremely proud of my drivers. I can’t imagine a better line-up for the 24h race than Timo, Marc, Romain and Marcel.” At the same time, Manthey and Tieman also showed their opponents respect: “A compliment to Audi for the great performance,” said Tiemann and his Team Principal added: “Prior to the race I had serious doubts if we would be able to defy the Audis. The more I’m delighted now about the fact that we succeeded in doing so and experienced such a successful race.”


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Agent009 - 5/26/2009 1:28:50 PM

+4 Boost

Yep, there the Scirocco fared pretty well Both the gas powered and the Natural Gas power versions and took their respective classes.

dlin - 5/26/2009 3:36:41 PM

-8 Boost

Like Toyota care.... They are there only to test mech/elec durability.

This site is full of boring flamewar post. And nobody really cares to participate. Tired of it myself.

ThierryHenry14 - 5/26/2009 10:13:38 PM

+4 Boost

it appears they have a lot to test, 6 hrs in the garage for each car!!!

M_Motorsport - 5/26/2009 5:02:00 PM

0 Boost

dlin you are pathetic!!

FanboyOfTheTruth - 5/26/2009 5:10:41 PM

-1 Boost

A Porsche caused the #15 LF-A crash at the beginning of the race, resulting in a bent driveshaft so the LF-A had to spend 5 hours in the garage just to fix the damage. The #14 LF-A was reliable for most of the race but had an alternator issue that cost it 3 hours in the garage. Considering the lost hours, it's quite an achievement for both the LF-A's to finish in the Top 100.

In terms of best lap times the LF-A was by far the fastest in its SP8 class, and very close to the leading cars that were heavily modified from their production trims. Remember that the LF-A was only modified lightly from its production-ready trim to meet the race requirements so that the data gathered from the race can be useful for further production tuning.

WorldofLuxury - 5/26/2009 8:17:58 PM

0 Boost

Thank you for that info!
I couldn't say it 'cause I didn't know enough and lacked in physical proof :P
Thanks again, btw.

And yeah... the Audi R8 is a full on GT3 racer! It's RWD, not AWD!

chewy - 5/26/2009 8:38:22 PM

+2 Boost

No it's not, there is no production LF-A to compare to. They say that the engine was not modified, but again you are not comparing to a real production car.

It was about halfway between the GT3 and the "mostly stock" Aston Martins in performance. The LF-A had aerodynamic changes, the Astons didn't. That is a big difference.

20 seconds off the pace is not very close. The Lexus was a half effort, not stock and not a real race car.

chewy - 5/26/2009 8:50:51 PM

+2 Boost

The 15 was on fire, must have been quite a bent driveshaft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMkpdLPt2KU

FanboyOfTheTruth - 5/26/2009 11:02:24 PM

0 Boost

"Production-ready" as in being able to mass-produce the car in a way that is financially feasible given the target market and being able to pass all the regulations for the car to be legally driven on the road.

The LF-A racer had to be as close to production-ready as possible for the data gathered from the race to be meaningful for the development towards actual production. Most other participants did not, and were therefore modified with extreme-performance parts that are simply not feasible for a production road car. 10-20 seconds of difference is close enough between production-ready and full-blown racers.

chewy - 5/26/2009 11:51:16 PM

+1 Boost

It's pretty far away from production with its aerodynamics. Aston Martin was doing what you said. No wings, splitters, extra diffusers.

Why add those if the goal is to gain data about the production version?

It certainly doesn't look like the prototypes running around the 'ring.

FanboyOfTheTruth - 5/27/2009 12:44:26 AM

-1 Boost

And therefore the pace of the LF-A was somewhere between the winning GT3 racer and the near-stock Aston Martin. Not surprising is it?

They've done enough of their aerodynamic testing with their production mules. With the endurance race it's more about testing the durability of the drivetrain, chassis and suspension under prolonged abuse.

M_Motorsport - 5/26/2009 5:17:08 PM

+6 Boost

Congrats to Porsche on a great victory in a tough race!