From the sunny South of France back to the unpredictable weather of the Eifel for one of the biggest endurance races on the calendar and something that the Walkenhorst team had been prepping for since the previous N24hrs!
Having qualified for the top30 shootout, the next job for the #101 crew, this weekend joined by double starter & BMW legend Jorg Muller, was to qualify the car for the top20 qualifying shootout. In an attempt to prevent sand bagging, the qualifying structure had changed this year to make sure everyone was pushing to get into the top 20 qualifying shootout and different drivers had to take part in top30 and top20 sessions.
Christian would be nominated to put the #101 car into Top20 qualifying with the top5 in the session advancing to the top20 shootout where David was nominated to drive. However Chris was only able to manage 7th in the session meaning a P22 start and no advancement into the top20 session. Christian completed his lap moments before the rain came which completely soaked the circuit and with many drivers aborting laps in the topQ session meant the #101 car was safe in the garage ready for the start of the race.
Raceday morning saw David nominated as the starting driver on the damp and drying track from the day before. Slick tyres were selected however on the warm up lap the track showed significant wet patches from Flugplatz to Metzgafelt and through Klorstoral making it an extremely tricky start to the race! Determined to bring the #101 car up the order, David made a storming start to bring the car up 12 positions before Flugplatz where the damp track was and the Yokohama tyres struggled more in the damp conditions vs the Michelins competitors and almost everything that was gained was lost again. Undeterred, David settled into a rhythm with the long race ahead.
Drama struck on lap3 of the race though where several cars went off at Adeanu Forst and made contact with the barrier with David being one of them. This bent the rear left tow link meaning a slow trip back to the pits and a repair before heading back out into the monsoon rain, 2 laps down on the GT3 leaders and P119 overall.
“The weekend had been tough upto that point. We were all comfortable in ticking through our pre event program, we didn’t make it through to the top20 shootout and would start the race P22, but as it’s a long race we weren’t bothered, the start was tricky due to the conditions on the Nordschleife and even with a great start on the GP circuit and the beginning of the Nordschleife, it was tough to match the Michelin cars in the mixed conditions.
I then made a mistake through Adeanu Forst, not judging the conditions properly, and contact with the barrier put paid to our race winning challenge. I am extremely sorry to the team and my team mates as I know how much effort goes into preparing for a race like this” The rest of the race would be spent trying to make up the time, however with no safety cars at the Nurburgring24hrs the car continued 2laps down for the remainder of the race picking up spots as others had issues which bought the car back upto P15.