Nick Catsburg brought the #98 Rowe Racing M6 GT3 home second in a dramatic, rain-soaked finish to the 45th running of the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring. The car that he shared with Markus Palttala, Alexander Sims, and Richard Westbrook was the first of four M6 GT3s to finish in the top ten.
Augusto Farfus, Marco Wittmann, Tom Blomqvist, and Martin Tomczyk finished fourth in the #42 Team Schnitzer car; Peter Dumbreck, Alexandre Imperatori, Stef Dusseldorp, and Marco Seefried finished eighth in the Falken Motorsports car; and Philipp Eng, Alexander Sims, Maxime Martin, and Marc Basseng finished tenth in #99, the second Rowe Racing M6 GT3.
The winning #29 Land Audi R8 LMS driven by Kelvin van der Linde, Connor De Phillippi, Markus Winkelhock and Christopher Mies had led much of the way, but an electrical problem with just over an hour left dropped them to third and appeared to take them out of contention. At that point René Rast in the #9 WRT Audi R8 LMS that he shared with Robin Frijns, Marcel Fässler, and Nico Müller took the lead, with Catsburg in the #98 Rowe M6 GT3 moving up to second. Rast and Catsburg stopped and went out slicks despite the threat of rain. When the #29 Audi pitted, the team put on slicks, but then their stop was slowed because of a loose fuel cap. At that point they made a spur of the moment decision to change to wet weather tires. The move enabled them to retake the lead as Rast and Catsburg struggled in the rain. The two racers had to come in for rain tires on the penultimate lap. Catsburg was able to get the M6 past the #9 Audi when the two cars returned to the track.
Catsburg said, “We all read that there was a chance of rain, but in the car I was sure it wasn't going to - it was so sunny. The team came on the radio and told me spots of rain were reported but I passed that location and it was totally dry. That happened twice... Then suddenly there was massive rain, but it was localized so I stayed on slicks. But then the second lap after it started raining, huge sections of the track were absolutely soaked; I was barely able to stay on the track at 10km/h! On the last lap, the car was amazing on the wets, and we were able to take P2. It feels amazing to be on the podium. It's a very, very big event and I'm very happy with this result.”
The new M4 GT4 completed the 24 hours successfully; Dirk Adorf BMW Motorsport Junior Ricky Collard (GBR), Jörg Weidinger, and Jethro Bovingdon, finished in 37th place overall.
Thirteen BMW M235iRs competed in Cup 5, the dedicated M235i Racing class. The winning car was driven by Yannick Mettler, Patrick Hinte, Marc Ehret, and the reigning BMW Sports Trophy winner Michael Schrey. American racers James Clay, Tyler Cooke, and Charlie Postins and Dutch racer Einar Thorsen finished ninth.
BMW Motorsport made several significant announcements on race weekend at the Nürburgring. The company showed a camouflaged version of the M8, and announced that the M8 GTE would be the new WEC race car. BMW also confirmed that the M6 GT3 would continue as the top model in the customer car range through 2019, with an Evo package installed in 2018, and announced that the new M4 GT4 is now available for sale.—Brian S. Morgan
