The Top Runners in the 40th Nürburgring 24 Hours

The 40^th running of the Nürburgring 24 Hours begins this Saturday at 4:00pm local time. The race will challenge the endurance of 190 cars for 24 hours around the longest permanent race course in the world. Plus, close to 100,000 mostly drunken Germans will be cheering them on all night long. Even though there were 250 cars entered last year, the Nürburgring 24 Hours is still the largest sports car race in the world in terms of entrants.

The officials have made a few changes this year to hopefully make the race more exciting. There will be three qualifying sessions. One Thursday evening, one Friday morning and a new, final Top 40 session early Friday evening. The Top 40 session will be just for the 40 fastest cars to give them a cleaner track to set fast times. These cars are also required to have a flashing light on them to identify them to spectators and officials.

Here is what the track looks like during a VLN race with fraction of the cars

© photo by Manthey Racing, licence: Attribution

The cars are separated into 28 different classes based on displacement and fuel type, but in reality there are different classes. The SP2T-SP10,D,A and XP classes are meant for purpose-built race cars. The fastest of the bunch are the SP9 cars, which use the same rules as FIA GT3. The next fastest are SP10, which are GT4 cars, and performance drops from there. A 'T' after the class name denotes a turbocharger. D-class cars are diesels; A-class cars use alternative fuels like natural gas; and XP cars are experimental one-offs. There is only one XP car this year, the Ferrari P4/5 built by James Glickenhaus.

The other class of cars is the 'V' class. These cars are also classified by displacement, but the V class is for series production cars used in the VLN racing series. They are not purpose-built race cars but street cars modified for safety to go racing.

Realistically, only the SP8, SP9 and SP10 cars have a realistic chance of taking an overall win, but those classes make up a large portion of the racers.

The major teams in the race this year are the Manthey Racing PorschePorscheGermany, 1931 > present43 models
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29 videos
team, AudiAudiGermany, 1909 > present83 models
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27 videos
customer teams and Aston MartinAston MartinUnited Kingdom, 1914 > present62 models
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teams.

Five customer teams are campaigning seven Audi R8 LMS UltraAudi R8 LMS UltraGermany, 2012 > present6 photos
race cars in the SP9 GT3 cars. Two cars have been entered by Audi Sport Team Pheonix who also race in the DTM, and they have brought some of their drivers along. The #2 Audi is being driven by Marcel Fässler, Christopher Mies, Rene Rast and Frank Stippler. While the #3 car will be driven by Marc Besseng, Christopher Haase, Frank Stippler and Marcus Wincklehock.

The Manthey Racing Team are sure to be favorites. The team has taken first place in every Nürburgring 24 Hour race since 2006. This year the team is entering two cars under their own team and two cars as the Wochenspiegel Team Manthey. The faster SP9 cars are using Porsche factory drivers. The Manthey Racing #10 Porsche 911 GT3 RPorsche 911 GT3 RGermany, 2010 > present4 photos
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will be driven by Marco Holzer, Nick Tandy, Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Long.

Here are the top VLN teams who will all be in the 24 Hour race

© photo by Manthey Racing, licence: Attribution

The Wochenspiegel Team Manthey #11 Porsche 911 GT3 R is being driven by Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas, Lucas Luhr and Richard Lietz. With that driving lineup in such a proven team, it is sure to do well.

Aston Martin is also entering four cars – 2 V12 Vantage GT3sAston Martin V12 Vantage GT3United Kingdom, 2011 > present3 photos
and 2 V12 ZagatosAston Martin V12 ZagatoUnited Kingdom, 2011 > present19 photos
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. The #007 Vantage GT3 will be driven by Johannes Stuck and Ferdinand Stuck, Dennis Rostek and Darren Turner. The Stucks are the sons of  three-time Nürburgring 24 Hours winner Hans-Joachim Stuck. The #006 Vantage GT3 will be driven by Stefan Mücke, Tomas Enge, Fredy Barth and Oliver Mathai.

The #5 V12 Zagatos will be driven by Aston Martin's CEO Dr. Ulrich Bez with Aston Martin Chief Engineer Chris Porritt, Aston Martin Nürburgring Test Centre Director Wolfgang Schuhbauer and automotive journalist Richard Meaden. The other V12 Zagato will be driven by Jurgen Stumpf, Mal Rose, Rob Thomson Peter Cate.

The night will play a bigger role in this year's race. There will be at least 8 hours and 27 minutes of darkness this year compared to 7 hours and 41 minutes last year meaning at least 46 more minutes of darkness compared to last year.

The weather is supposed to be rainy during the race

© photo by Manthey Racing, licence: Attribution

In the past it has been difficult to find the Nürburgring 24 Hours outside of Europe, but this year it will be easily available to English- and German-speaking audiences. English language viewers will be able to stream the race on Radio Lemans and Audi TV. German viewers will be able to stream the race on Sport Auto and Sport 1. The race begins at 4:00pm local time on Saturday, May 19, and runs to 4:00pm Sunday, May 20.

The racing should be fantastic this year. Even if there are fewer cars this yea, the quality of the drivers has been increasing over the past decade. Check back tomorrow after the Top 40 qualifying to see who is on pole.

There are a few fun things that you can do before the race begins. The GRMN team has placed GPS trackers on all three of its cars, and it has set up a web site showing a map of the Nürburgring with the cars' locations. Unfortunately, the text is in Japanese. However, it lets you see where the cars are on track during the race and qualifying. 

Also if you want to follow the qualifying times live. They are available on the official Nürburgring 24 Hours web site. It says that it will also be streaming the race, but it is not clear in what language that stream will be in. Qualifying times are 19:30-23:30 Thursday, 9:35-11:35 Friday and the Top 40 qualifying is 18:00 to 18:50 on Friday.