Nürburgring 24-hours 2008 review
The Nürburgring 24-hours 2008 is over. Manthey Racing won the race for the third time in succession. Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb and Marcel Tiemann piloted the green and yellow Porsche 911 RSR. Team boss Olaf Manthey was very happy.
“This hat-trick of victories is the crowning glory of my career as a team boss. We had some minor technical hitches to deal with early on, but apart from that we put together a virtually perfect race,” said Manthey.
The minor technical hitches looked worse than they were. The number one Porsche had to dive in to the pits on the very first lap as the cooling system failed. The team were able to mend the car and get back in to the race. Their driver Tiemann became historical as he took his fourth Nürburgring 24-hours win.
“It’s fantastic, a wonderful feeling. This fourth win is something very special and puts me up there with the best. It also means I’ve completed a hat-trick with the same team. It’s just great,” said Tiemann.
Second in the race was another Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 with previous touring car-star Armin Hahne, Christian Haarmann, Jochen Krumbach and previous DTM-driver Pierre Kaffer.
There were more touring car drivers in the field. World Touring Car Championship drivers Jörg Müller and Augusto Farfus and reigning Swedish Touring Car Championship champion Fredrik Ekblom took a class victory in the diesel powered BMW 320d of Schubert Motors.
“I am very tired now but I am very happy with the class victory,” said Ekblom after the race.
But it was close that the race ended only three hours from the finish. Müller collided with a Porsche and was left standing on the track. Thanks to the repair-skills of the German, they could continue and finish the race first in the diesel-category.
Ekblom’s rival in the Swedish Touring Car Championship, Richard Göransson, on the other hand did not finish the race. Göransson piloted the Scubert Motors BMW Z4 and was fighting for the overall lead with Manthey Racing and Zakspeed. But close to the mid point of the race Stian Sörlie hit a patch of oil and rolled the car heavily. Luckily the Norwegian was uninjured, but the team had to retire from the race.
“The car was totaled, very sad. But the most important thing is that Stian is uninjured! We had a good race before the accident and we had contact with the lead,” said Göransson.
Göransson’s team mate from last year and previous DTM-ace Hans Joachim Stuck had better fortunes and finished eleventh overall, taking the class victory for turbo charged 2-liter cars in the neat-looking Volkswagen Scirocco.
“We gave the Volkswagen Scirocco a really fantastic debut with the class victory. It was an extraordinary experience shared with extraordinary team-mates. Putting in a successful performance alongside global stars such as Carlos Sainz in this amazing arena and in the world’s most exacting race gave me huge pleasure,” said Stuck.
Stuck shared car with Florian Gruber, Thomas Mutsch and the Swede Jimmy Johansson who was very happy after the 24 hour long race.
“I am almost left out of words! The new Scirocco was sensational and the team was great. It was a pure pleasure and I definitely want to be in the team in 2009,” said Johansson.
Previous Formula One-driver and DTM-driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen took part in the race in the spectacular Gumpert Apollo. The team had quite a lot of technical problems with some of the hybrid-technology in the car but the German was happy with the race.
“You can look at our result in two ways. On the one hand, we had two lots of problems with the gearbox in the conventional drive system. But, from a different perspective, the brake energy regeneration concept exceeded our expectations,” said Frentzen.
A total of 220.000 fans visited the legendary race around the 25.378-km Nürburgring Nordschleife-circuit. The race is extremely demanding with many drivers and teams retiring. The winning team, Manthey Racing, completed 148 laps. But “only” 149 teams crossed the finish line of the 216 starting teams.
