BMW works driver Max Hesse has secured pole position in the top qualifying for the 52nd edition of the 24h Nürburgring 2024. The 22-year-old secured himself and his teammates Charles Weerts and Dan Harper in the #72 BMW M4 GT3 the first starting position for the Eifel classic (race start on Saturday at 4:00 p.m., live on free TV on RTL Nitro and in the live ticker of Motorsport-Magazin.com).
17 cars started in the final Q2 of the top qualifying on Friday evening and had two flying laps to set a fast time. Hesse managed this best on a clear track and in consistently dry conditions: the Wernau native needed 8:10.992 minutes for his best lap on the more than 25-kilometer-long combination of GP track and Nordschleife.
Manthey-Porsche completes first row
Hesse was the only driver who managed to break the 8:11 mark with his first fast lap. The #72 BMW of the former DTM team RMG has been consistently strong since the first qualifying session on Thursday and has led the standings throughout. For BMW, it was the 16th pole position at the Nürburgring 24-hour race – a record held by the Munich-based carmaker.
Behind Hesse, Laurens Vanthoor secured his place in the #911 Manthey-Porsche (L. Vanthoor/Preining/Estre/Güven) took second place on the grid. The experienced Porsche works driver achieved his personal best time of 8:11.398 minutes – 0.406 seconds behind the young pole-setter. Manthey is the record winner at the Ring with seven overall victories.
DTM teammates on starting positions three and four at the 24h Nürburgring
Third and fourth place went to two drivers who had been racing in the DTM at Abt Sportsline will have Ricardo Feller in the #16 Scherer Audi (Stippler/Mies/Feller/Marschall) and Kelvin van der Linde, who will be driving an Abt Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 at the Ring together with Marco Mapelli and Jordan Pepper.
With BMW, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini, four of the seven brands represented in the SP9 class found themselves in the top four of the starting grid for the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring. Nordschleife veteran Christopher Haase led the second Scherer Audi with starting number #15 (Vervisch/Haase/Winkelhock/Feller) to fifth place. A strong team performance from the Scherer squad, which was not deterred by the lack of factory support from Audi Sport.
Frikadelli-Ferrari in sixth place in 24h starting grid
The defending champions, the #1 Frikadelli Ferrari (Laser/Keilwitz/Ludwig/Varrone), are aiming for their second win in a row from P6. Newcomer Daniel Keilwitz was at the wheel of the ‘Bella 2.0’ and was 1.1 seconds behind the pole time. Augusto Farfus experienced plenty of action, bringing the #99 Rowe BMW (Frijns/S. van der Linde/D. Vanthoor/Farfus) to seventh place. Curiously, Farfus had previously competed in Q1 in the sister BMW (P9). The Brazilian is listed as a double starter, which means that this trick is actually allowed.
Places eight, nine and ten on the starting grid were completed by the #130 GetSpeed-Mercedes (Engel/Gounon/Schiller/Christodoulou), the #4 HRT-Mercedes (Stolz/Götz/Juncadella/Maini) and the #33 Falken-Porsche (Andlauer/Bachler/Müller/Picariello) with qualifying driver Klaus Bachler.