Alexander Sims, Philipp Eng, Maxime Martin, and Dirk Werner drove the #23 Rowe Racing M6 GT3 to a fifth-place finish in the Nürburgring 24-hour race on Memorial Day Weekend. Their finish was the best for BMW in a race dominated by Mercedes.
Both Walkenhorst M6 GT3s finished the race. Victor Bouveng, Tom Blomqvist, Christian Krognes, and Michele di Martino in #999 recovered from repairs in the overnight hours that cost them several laps to finish twelfth overall, and Matias Henkola, Kazunori Yamauchi, Max Sandritter, and George Richardson finished 22nd in car #101.
The #100 Schubert Motorsport M6 GT3 driven by John Edwards, Jens Klingmann, Lucas Luhr, and Martin Tomczyk ran near the front of the pack until it was taken out in an incident on Saturday night; Luhr was running third at the time. The second Schubert car, driven by Augusto Farfus, Jesse Krohn, Jörg Müller, and Marco Wittmann, led the race early, but the car was parked by the side of the track with engine failure just after the six-hour mark. The crew worked on the car all night—it returned to the track on Sunday morning, but was not classified as a finisher in the final results. The Rowe Racing #22 M6 GT3 driven by Klaus Graf, Richard Westbrook, Nicky Catsburg, and Markus Palttala also led early in the race; it was retired after a collision with a slower car.
The race was stopped at the end of the first hour when a hailstorm sent cars sliding off the track and left the circuit undriveable. Competition resumed after a four-hour halt.
Maro Engel, Bernd Schneider, Adam Christodoulou and Manuel Metzger won the race in the #4 Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG GT3. Engel passed Christian Hohenadel in the #29 HTP Motorsport Mercedes for the lead on the final lap; the margin of victory was 5.6 seconds. HTP had pitted the Mercedes that Hohenadel shared with Renger van der Zande, Christian Vietoris and Marco Seefried with 1 ¼ hours left, earlier than the other leaders. The team’s strategy came up short as Hohenadel had to pit for a splash of fuel with two laps left. He returned to the track in the lead, but Engel reeled him in on the final lap. There was contact between the two cars when Engel made the pass, but after reviewing the incident the stewards elected to take no action. Two more Mercedes-AMG GT3s finished third and fourth. The Mercedes, like the M6 GT3s, are new cars this year.
BMW motorsport director Jens Marquardt said, “Naturally we are somewhat disappointed with the race result and had hoped for more on the BMW M6 GT3’s debut at this endurance classic. But that’s how it is in endurance racing, especially here at the Nordschleife: You can plan preparation, and a race strategy – but not how the race will go. And once again the Nürburgring pretty much offered everything that has made it legendary; sun, rain, hail, extreme weather conditions and interruption of the race. And, unfortunately, luck wasn’t on our side. At times we were able to show the potential of the BMW M6 GT3, and were even in the lead. Then technical issues and two accidents meant that in the course of the race we only had one car left in the leading group. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough with the strong competition. Which was very strong, much stronger than in the warm-up races. However, our performances in the first VLN races spoke for themselves: We showed what we were capable of achieving. I would like to say a big well done to our teams. Even though the result didn’t reflect this, Schubert Motorsport, ROWE Racing and Walkenhorst Motorsport delivered a fantastic, flawless performance, and the same is true of our driver line-up. The teamwork was a lot of fun and I am already looking forward to next year. I’m confident that then we will get a result that is a fairer reflection on our teams, the drivers and the BMW M6 GT3. Congratulations to Mercedes-Benz on its win.”—Brian S. Morgan
