24h Le Mans
This weekend at the Nordschleife circuit will take place the legendary 24 Hours of Nurburgring. Reserved solely for GTs and touring cars, the German race is a kind of rehearsal for some drivers who will compete at Le Mans in less than a month.
Some of the drivers taking the start at the 44th edition of the 24 Hours of Nurburgring will perhaps be familiar to you. That's no surprise if you're a fan of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and endurance series overseen by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. Also on the starting grid, there will be recognizable faces from the Weathertech SportsCar Championship and the World Endurance Championship (WEC).
Manthey Racing, an expert in the race, will enter two Porsche 911 GT3-Rs which eight factory drivers will share. Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber - winners at the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Porsche 919 Hybrid - will be joined by Patrick Pilet, champion in the GTLM class last year overseas, and Kevin Estre. They will drive the No. 911 Porsche. In the team's second car, the No. 912, Michael Christensen, Frederic Makowiecki and Jörg Bergmeister will be supported by Richard Lietz, champion in the LM GTE Pro class in the WEC. Another Porsche driver, Wolf Henzler, is also in Germany with the Team Falken team entering a Porsche 911 GT3-R. At the wheel of this Porsche will be Alexandre Imperatori who will compete at Le Mans in LM P1 with Rebellion.
As for the Brits, two Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3s will take the start. At the wheel will be eight drivers, all competing full-time in the WEC and entered in the 24 Hours of Le Mans: Richie Stanaway, Jonny Adam, Fernando Rees and Mathias Lauda in the No. 006, and Nicki Thiim, Marco Sørensen, Darren Turner and Pedro Lamy in the No. 007.
Richard Westbrook, former official Corvette driver and now a part of the Ford GT adventure, will compete at the Nurburgring at the wheel of a BMW M6 GT3 entered by ROWE Racing BMW. His Ford teammates, Dirk Müller (entered in the Weathertech SportsCar Championship) and Stefan Mücke (WEC) will also be at the start, in Mercedes, for AMG Team Black Falcon and for AMG Team HTP Motorsport, respectively.
Note also the presence of René Rast in an Audi R8 LMS of Audi Sport Team Phoenix. He will race at Le Mans in LM P2 with the Russian team G-Drive Racing.
Geoffroy Barre
Photo: In 2015, Audi dominated the 24 Hours of Nurburgring and the new generation Audi R8 LMS won at its very first race.
