News

In the Top 30 Qualifying on Friday evening, the fight for grid positions for the Nürburgring 24-hour race gets underway for the Manthey Racing Porsche factory squad and the other top teams. The long distance classic on the tradition-steeped Nordschleife, where more than 200,000 fans are expected, takes off at 15.30 hours on Saturday. The successful squad, with its headquarters in Meuspath just a stone’s throw from the Nürburgring, used the second qualifying on Friday morning to further optimise the race set-up of their two 911 GT3 R and significantly improved their lap times compared to the first qualifying. Besides Manthey Racing, four other customer teams are contesting Germany’s biggest motorsport event with the new 500 hp customer sport racer from Weissach, which Porsche built based on the 911 GT3 RS for GT3 racing series worldwide.

The second qualifying began on a wet track but was almost completely dry by the end of the session. The #911 Porsche 911 GT3 R, shared by the overall Le Mans winner Earl Bamber (New Zealand), Nick Tandy (Great Britain) and Frenchmen Patrick Pilet and Kévin Estre, qualified on tenth place. Their teammates Richard Lietz (Austria), Jörg Bergmeister (Germany), Michael Christensen (Denmark) and Frédéric Makowiecki (France) landed on the 15th grid spot. The customer team Frikadelli Racing clocked an excellent fifth fastest lap time under perfect track conditions.

Comments on the 2nd qualifying
Dr Frank-Steffen Walliser, Head of Porsche Motorsport: “Now we are slowly seeing the real performance of all vehicles. The fans can look forward to an exciting and very competitive race. We are very satisfied with the results that we’ve seen by now with the Porsche teams.”

Drivers 911 GT3 R #911
Earl Bamber: “The qualifying was good. We continued to work on the car for the race and we’re really well prepared. There’s a great mood in the team. The next time I sit in the car will be for the race. I can hardly wait.”
Kévin Estre: “I only drove one lap on the Nordschleife. There were still a lot of damp places so I didn’t take any risks. We already know where we stand. The set-up of our 911 GT3 R works. I’m sure we’ll do well in the Top 30 Qualifying.”
Patrick Pilet: “That was a good stint on an almost completely dry track. Our 911 GT3 R is consistently quick, and there are no problems. I’m confident we have a good car for the race.”
Nick Tandy: “This qualifying session was the last chance for us to give our car its final tweaks for the race. Only two or three laps will be driven in the Top 30 Qualifying this evening so that won’t yield us any new insights. We are very happy with our 911 GT3 R. All the drivers took part in this session, so we can all tackle the race with a very good feeling for the track.”

Driver 911 GT3 R #912
Frédéric Makowiecki: “We made a few minor changes to the 911 GT3 R after the first qualifying and everything worked well. I drove the entire qualifying but the lap times were actually of secondary importance to me. In the Top 30 Qualifying things will be quite different.”


Result 2nd qualifying
1. Alzen/Arnold/Götz/Seyffarth (D/D/D/D), Mercedes, 8:16.311 minutes
2. Vietoris/Seefried/Hohenadel/Van der Zande (D/D/D/NL), Mercedes, + 0.179 sec.
3. Al Faisal/Gerwin/Dontje/Huff (SAU/D/NL/GB), Mercedes, + 2.064
5. Abbelen/Schmitz/Huisman/Siedler (D/D/NL/A), Porsche 911 GT3 R, + 2.991
10. Tandy/Estre/Bamber/Pilet (GB/F/NZ/F), Porsche 911 GT3 R, + 4.066
15. Lietz/Bergmeister/Christensen/Makowiecki (A/D/DK/F), Porsche 911 GT3 R,
+ 5.028
19. Weiss/Kainz/Krumbach/Stursberg (D/D/D/D), Porsche 911 GT3 R, + 6.005
23. Klohs/Schmidtmann/Richter/Renauer (D/D/D/D), Porsche 911 GT3 R, +7.166
32. Dumbreck/Henzler/Ragginger/Imperatori (GB/D/A/CHN), Porsche 911 GT3 R, +11.233

The Top 30 Qualifying, which determines the grid positions for the top teams, will be held Friday from 19.50 to 20.30 hrs. Kévin Estre (#911) and Frédéric Makowiecki (#912) will drive for Manthey Racing.