#1 Manthey Racing Porsche wins 2008 Nürburgring 24 hour
May 25th, 2008 Posted in Motorsports, Porsche
The #1 Manthey Racing Porsche (yellow/green) overcame first lap dramas to take it’s third consecutive Nürburgring 24 hour title. In second place, crossing the line in formation, was the #23 Manthey Racing Porsche and completing the podium was the #121 Sabine Schmitz Porsche.
Congratulations to all competitors who participated in this fascinating race.
3 Responses to “#1 Manthey Racing Porsche wins 2008 Nürburgring 24 hour”
By Avril on May 25, 2008
Thanks for all the great up to date info Liam - as usual, you’ve done a brilliant job.
Congratulations to the winners of the Nurburgring 24 Hr Race and kudos to all those who took part.
And a huge “thumbs up” to the Osborne team who despite the constant challenges thrown their way, managed to be on the track for all but the last hour or so of the race - a stellar effort guys!! Well done
By Matthew on May 26, 2008
Great site - thanks for all the updates.
As a bit of ‘Ring noob, but a big fan of all things motorsport - I’m wondering about the lap times - looking at the results, the quickest times were just under 9 minutes, yet, the ‘lap record’ for the GT-R is 7-29 - I take it that the ‘road’ section for cars out side racing is significantly shorter (by at least 90 seconds?) than the lap used for the 24hr race?
Thanks all,
Matt
By Liam on May 26, 2008
Matt, there are two parts that form what is referred to as the “Nürburgring”.
Starting with a bit of a history lesson, in 1927, when the track first opened there was the Südschleife (South loop) and the Nordschleife (North loop). For the most part, the big races were held on the Nordschleife (currently 20.832kms) and the Südschleife was kept for club days, testing and so on, IIRC its length was around 7-9kms.
Grand Prix racing took part on the Nordschleife up until Niki Lauda’s accident. After F1 stopped racing at the Ring it was decided to redevelop the Südschleife into a modern, purpose built closed circuit. The new GP track was built roughly where the two old tracks used to join (two parallel straights) and the Südschleife was lost for good (there are some sections accessible, but you have to know where to look).
So now there are basically two tracks — the GP circuit and the Nordschleife — that are pretty much separate. Of course, the two tracks are still able to be linked for events such as the 24 hour race. However, if you just rock up to the Ring on a regular tourist day you could be excused for not noticing the GP track at all. Entry on tourist days is usually accessed on the Döttinger Hohe straight and the T13 complex is where the Nordschleife and the GP track meet.
When you read about the lap times of the GT-R, for example, those times are set on the Nordschleife only and are normally a flying lap recorded at two different points. Roughly, the start point is just before the left hander exiting T13 and the finish point is just after the right hander entering T13, there’d be less than 100m of track not timed.
Back to the GP track, there are a couple of variations that can be made to the course and I’m pretty sure they use the full GP track for the 24 hour race, so that adds about 4.5km to the total lap distance.
In that context, the 8:26.7 pole time set by the Manthey Porsche for this year’s N24 is rather impressive.
Well, that’s the short long answer anyway, haha. For more info on the track’s history, follow these links:
http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCrburgring
To learn more about the track layout you can use the links above, or check out a couple of previous AUSringers posts:
http://www.ausringers.com/2008/02/03/nurburgring-on-google-maps.html
http://www.ausringers.com/2008/01/26/the-nordschleife-line-presented-by-bmw-gmbh.html
Cheers Liam