2023 Nürburgring 24 Hours | 5 Talking Points

1. Ferrari glory… but still a home win

This was still a hugely popular victory among the estimated 230,000 fans who create the unique buzz for which the Nürburgring 24 Hours is renowned – because it still counts very much as a home win. That’s because the Ferrari was run by local team Frikadelli Racing, which appears to have successfully overcome any lingering resentment for betraying its Porsche traditions and running the new Ferrari GT3 contender this year. The sacrilege!

This was a hugely emotional victory for team boss Klaus Abbelen – an entrepreneur who made his name via his signature meat balls! – as it marked his first at the 24 Hours after years of trying. Abbelen was also the partner of the late and much-missed Nürburgring icon Sabine Schmitz, who died of cancer in 2021, which added to the well of good feeling towards what is a very popular team in German motor sport. There was barely a dry eye.

2. New record set for distance

In contrast to the heart-breaking scenes coming in from northern Italy in the past week, the Nürburgring remained dry throughout – which was novel and a little disconcerting in itself. And without the usual squalls of rain, fog or hailstorms, the race was run at a record pace. The winning car, and indeed the top five, completed the 24 hours in 162 laps to set a new distance record, three more than the previous best. The Ferrari win was also the first for a ‘foreign’ car maker since Zakspeed won here in 2002 with its Chrysler Viper.

3. Vindication for David Pittard

The key to the Frikadelli Ferrari’s victory, beyond its impressive pace and a favourable Balance of Performance, was its remarkably trouble-free run, in a race defined by collisions in traffic. Credit is due to the four drivers and an effort anchored by a rising British talent: 31-year-old David Pittard. The Hertfordshire driver anchored the Frikadelli attack, starting and finishing the race – and nursed worries over potentially fragile shock absorbers in the closing stages to keep Rowe Racing’s #98 BMW M4 GT3 at arm’s length over the final hour. The final gap between the pair was just 26 seconds.

Pittard was racing historics – Lotus Elan, Cortina and Chevron B8 – when in 2016 Goodwood regular Frank Stippler offered sage advice that he should head to the Nürburgring to make his name. Pittard was clearly paying attention and has since established himself as a circuit specialist. He’s enjoyed plenty of personal landmarks on the Nordschleife in the Nürburgring Endurance Series, but what he really wanted was victory in the big one – and now he’s landed it, in deeply impressive style.

“It does feel a bit like vindication,” he said. “This is my new home race, I live an hour down the road. I’ve done a bit of everything since coming here five years ago. I remember getting my first pole, my first win, my first fastest lap, the championship in 2020. But if you do the Nürburgring Endurance Series this is the crown jewel, what everything leads towards.”

Pittard was joined by two-time Porsche Le Mans winner Earl Bamber, who is notching up an enviable record of his own at the classic sports cars races. The Kiwi also has an overall Sebring 12 Hours victory to his name (from last year, with Cadillac), and is twice a winner of the Bathurst 12 Hours race for GT cars. Renowned all-rounder Nicky Catsburg was another with reason to celebrate, adding a second Nürburgring 24 victory to the first he claimed with Rowe and BMW in 2020. The fourth driver was the exotically-named Felipe Fernandez Laser.

4. BMW forced to settle for ‘best of the German marques’

Rowe’s vastly experienced line-up in the #98 M4 chased the Frikadelli Ferrari for much of the race, having worked its way up from a lowly grid slot to lead briefly in the seventh hour. Sheldon van der Linde – who crashed at Pflantzgarten in qualifying – Dries Vanthoor, Marco Wittman and Maxime Martin did all they could through the night, into Sunday morning and all the way into the closing stages, but found the BMW short of the pace they needed to overhaul the Ferrari. 

“Just getting through the night was an achievement in itself with how many accidents there were,” said van der Linde. “Our plan was to get through the night and take the race from there, which is exactly what we did. The pace, we didn’t have enough to win the race, but we knew we could make time by getting through traffic cleanly.”

5. Mercedes on the third step of the podium

Completing the podium was the best of the Mercedes-AMG GT3s, the Team Bilstein #4 entry helmed by Raffaele Marciello, Luca Stolz, Philip Ellis and Formula E ace Edoardo Mortara. The car started from pole position and found itself racing hard with two other Mercs on occasion. But the green #3 entry was forced out after contact with a Porsche Cayman, to the exasperation of 2016 race winner Maro Engel, and the red #2 version (anchored by Brit Adam Christodoulou) was beaten into fourth place.

Rutronik Racing was the best of the Porsches in fifth. The Manthey entry was knocked out of contention early on when a puncture spun Kevin Estre into the Tiergarten barrier, while the challenge from the Falken Tyre 992-generation 911s dwindled despite high hopes after qualifying. The #44 turquoise and blue car was the highest Porsche qualifier in sixth and ran as high as fourth in the race, only for a spin at Flugplatz for Tim Heineman to blunt its challenge. The car did at least deliver the tyre brand a consolation 10^th at the flag.

As for Audi, the winning car maker in 2022, the race proved a disappointment and the R8 LMS GT3 evo IIs were never in contention – even if last year’s victorious car did manage to briefly lead. The #39 Audi Sport Team Land entry salvaged sixth on a weekend the brand will likely sooner forget.