Mercedes SLS Wins Nurburgring 24 Hours 2013 Race

The ‘Black Falcon’ Mercedes SLS has won the Nurburgring 24. This win gives Mercedes Benz its first win at the Ring. The #9 car was driven by Bernd Schneider (Germany), Jeroen Bleekemolen (Netherlands), Sean Edwards (GB) and Nicki Thiim (Denmark). They finished the grueling endurance race 2:39 minutes ahead of their nearest competitor after 88 laps. A total of seven SLS AMG GT3s competed in the 24 Hours of Nürburgring and the #22 model by Rowe Racing came in third place overall. The early stages of the race were led by the No. 4 TUV Rheinland Phoenix Racing Audi R8 with Frank Stippler at the wheel after scoring pole. But it wouldn’t be as good a result as 2012 for Audi this time out. 
All of the factory backed R8s hit trouble at various points, which ultimately cost them the race. The No. 1 G-Drive Phoenix entry was the best of the Audis throughout and finished a lowly fifth. When the red flag came out the leader was the No. 007 factory Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3 of Allan Simonsen. He took the lead at the first corner, after going three wide with a backmarker and the No. 4 Audi at the Dottinger Hohe straight during an ultra-quick stint. The raw pace for the Vantage was outstanding all weekend until that point. The race was stopped for a total of nine hours, and didn’t resume till 8:30 a.m. This gave many teams the chance to repair their cars after early race incidents. When the race did resume, the No. 007 Aston Martin struggled in the wet conditions and quickly dropped down to 11th place. Most Michelin runners aside from the BMWs also had difficulties in the constantly changing conditions which brought the Mercedes teams back into the race, as the Dunlop cut slicks proved to have the upper hand. Five-time winners Manthey Racing was the most surprising victims of the tire lottery. After sitting as high as second overall, their No. 50 entry suffered a gearbox issue and the sister No. 18 car just couldn’t match the pace of the frontrunners.  Team Schubert’s pair of BMW Z4s were favorites to win the race by many, but mistakes cost them dearly. The No. 19 car hit its sister car in a yellow flag zone, which damaged both cars in the opening hours. It eventually retired with a steering rack issue and the No. 20 car seemed to never fully recover, finishing sixth overall. The fight for the win was then between the No. 9 Black Falcon car, the Nos. 22 and 23 Rowe Racing Mercedes and the No. 25 Marc VDS Racing BMW, which all stayed on the lead lap until the penultimate tour of the circuit. The No. 9 Black Falcon car may have won but a star definitely emerged from the race.  BMW Team RLL ALMS driver Maxime Martin in the No. 25 Marc VDS BMW had the race of his life, taking the lead at the restart and opening a 17.2 second gap up at the front in one lap. That wasn’t it though, the team lost the lead after Yelmer Buurman was caught up in an incident on his out lap, so it was up to the young Belgian star to get them back into the race in the closing stages. Bernd Schneider’s very quick stint had cemented the lead for the No. 9 Mercedes by midday, and the German squad wouldn’t be troubled on track for the remainder of the race. In the final hour Martin caught both Rowe cars who were in second and third and passed them both in one lap, much to the delight of the 210,000-strong crowd. He came from 21 seconds behind the Rowe cars on that lap to join in the fight for the podium.