VLN and Nurburgring 24 hours

[Akrapovic]

BMW saying they're expecting to only get 4 laps on a set of tyres!? That can't be right surely.

[stuart thompson]

Loving the commentators last line before the start, 'when the flag drops the bullshit stops'.

[Akrapovic]

Love how fast the SCGs are. One hassling a Mercedes. Great to see.

[J Jay]

Rast passes Westphal through traffic to take the lead.

#12 Manthey in the pits already.

[Akrapovic]

61 porsche runs into a Clio. Clio swings round and takes out the Porsche. Another Clio runs into the back of the 34 Audi in the mess. Lots of debris.

[Truckosaurus]

You would have thought that after the best part of 20 years of water cooled 911s they would have found a better cooling solution than having the radiators in the corners of the front bumper.

I bet holed radiators have seen off more 911s than any other issue.

[Akrapovic]

SCG 704 leads again. Jumped Rast coming out of a code 60 area. Assuming he did that legally.

Edit: Yeah looks like everyone went except for Rast.

[J Jay]

Did Westphal get back into the lead on a single yellow, or was that a double? Rast caught asleep in any case.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Did Westphal get back into the lead on a single yellow, or was that a double? Rast caught asleep in any case.

Green I think. If you watch the cars behind (the other WRT Audi and co), they all accelerate at the same point Westphal did. So must've been a green there.

[Akrapovic]

34 now has a puncture after being rear ended by a Clio. Very slow limp back.

[Mr Pink]

Audi looking extremely strong thus far, and BMW is nowhere to be found.

[J Jay]

Manta in the pits, news nobody wants to hear

[Akrapovic]

Eventful so far. Fox tail manta in the garage. British run Bentley early pit call. One of the brand new R8 GT4s has had a brake fire.

[TzeiTzei]

Rooting for Glickenhaus and the Renault RS01.

Audi looking strong on the early laps.

[Creep89]

Looks like Dunlop is the tire you want to have during this part of the race.

[J Jay]

Rast pits from 2nd.

[Creep89]

Kaffer also. Teams are splitting the pit stops of their cars.

[Akrapovic]

So Bentley doing 4 lap stint, Audi doing 6 lap. Are the tyres really struggling this much? Surely losing 5 seconds a lap isn't a big deal? Pit stops take a lot longer than that.

[J Jay]

Are they not just pitting out of sequence?

This does play into the hands of the SCG in the long run, who ran for 7/8 laps.

[Akrapovic]

Next set of Audis pit after 7 laps along with the 702 SCG. That means the 704 goes through to do an 8th lap. I don't understand the minimum pit stop times but apparently if you do more laps, you need to do a longer pit stop so it'll lose the lead for now.

[Akrapovic]

The Ferrari was spun in T1. Continues on.

[Akrapovic]

704 accelerating in a slow zone. Looked a bit iffy there but only time will tell.

[gert]

BMW was nowhere but is now leading with Palttala (I think) putting in good lap times, a few seconds faster than the others.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by gert

BMW was nowhere but is now leading with Palttala (I think) putting in good lap times, a few seconds faster than the others.

Got track position by doing a short first stint/stop though... will be interesting to see how that strategy shakes out over the course of the race.

Now here's an interesting piece of strategy from Haribo. Coming in early because of the expected Code 60 for that Porsche?

[J Jay]

Porsches dropping like flies today. Another one collides with a Mercedes 230E.