The 2012 Nürburgring 24 hour race has been running for a couple of hours now and the early story centres around tyre failures. A number of cars have suffered punctures to their right rear tyres. In one instance it forced the #15 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG into the barriers along the main Döttinger Höhe straight, all while the #2 Audi R8 LMS was very close behind.

Aston Martin has had a terrible start with their GT3 cars striking trouble in the first hour. At this stage the #85 V8 Vantage with Mal Rose and Rob Thomson in the crew is running strongly.

After the break you’ll see our first Australia/NZ update for the race and we’re pleased to report all 11 cars are still circulating. It’s past 2am here in Australia so we may not have another update for quite a few hours. In the meantime you can keep an eye on proceedings via the official live timing feed.

Car #14 – Porsche 911 GT3 Cup // Class SP 7
28th outright // 3rd in class (12 laps)
Frank Kräling (GER), Marco Schelp (GER), Marc Gindorf (MCO),
Peter Scharmach (NZ)

Car #24 – Audi R8 LMS ultra // Class SP 9
23rd outright // 23rd in class (12 laps)
Florien Gruber (GER), Alexander Yoong Loong (MAS), Warren Luff (AUS),
Luca Cappellari (MCO)

Car #70 – BMW M3 GT4 // Class SP 10
64th outright // 8th in class (11 laps)
Damien Flack (AUS), Silvester Wolf (GER), Emin Akata (GER), Mario Merten (GER)

Car #85 – Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT4 // Class SP 8
56th outright // 4th in class (11 laps)
Jürgen Stumpf (GER), Mal Rose (AUS), Rob Thomson (AUS), Peter Cate (GB)

Car #99 – BMW M3 // Class SP 6
65th outright // 2nd in class (11 laps)
Roberto Feccio (ITA), Dario Paletto (ITA), Richard Purtscher (GER),
Paul Stubber (AUS)

Car #103 – BMW M3 // Class SP 5
104th outright // 3rd in class (10 laps)
Richard Gartner (AUS), Garth Duffy (AUS), Allan Shephard (AUS)

Car #117 – Subaru Impreza WRX // Class SP 3T
112th outright // 9th in class (10 laps)
Martin Bailey (AUS), Mike Reedy (AUS), Ross Lilly (AUS)

Car #130 – Seat Leon Supercopa // Class SP 3T
99th outright // 7th in class (10 laps)
Malcom Niall (AUS), Brett Niall (AUS), Clint Harvey (AUS), Mark Pilatti (AUS)

Car #202 – BMW 320i // Class SP 3
143rd outright // 15th in class (9 laps)
Axel Burghardt (GER), Jürgen Meyer (GER), Guy Stewart (NZ), Toshiya Ito (JPN)

Car #214 – BMW 325i // Class V4
130th outright // 8th in class (10 laps)
Bastian Hüttinger (GER), Peter O’Donnell (NZ), Matthew Hansen (AUS),
Angus Chapel (AUS)

Car #215 – BMW M3 // Class V5
133rd outright // 7th in class (10 laps)
Niels Borum (DEN), Maurice O’Reilly (NZ), Wayne Moore (NZ), Michael Eden (NZ)