
GT3: Second place for Audi Sport customer racing
Fighting for its sixth overall victory in the turbulent 48th running of the Nürburgring 24 Hours, Audi Sport customer racing had to admit defeat by just 15 seconds. Audi Sport drivers Mirko Bortolotti, Christopher Haase and Markus Winkelhock in the Audi R8 LMS crossed the finish line in the most adverse conditions in the Eifel region as runners-up.

Difficult conditions
Constant changes between rain and dry conditions, plus a ten hours interruption of the race due to torrential rain – the 2020 edition of the endurance classic on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, which was postponed from May to September due to the Corona pandemic, lived up to its reputation as one of the largest endurance races in the world.

“What a race!”
“What a race,” said Chris Reinke, Head of Audi Sport customer racing. “Congratulations to BMW on clinching overall victory. This time, we fell a little short of the mark, but in the next 24-hour race at Spa in four weeks’ time, we intend to be the front runners again.”

Thrilling duel
Nordschleife rookie Mirko Bortolotti and his seasoned fellow Audi Sport drivers Christopher Haase and Markus Winkelhock delivered an impeccable race. As a team of three, they had started from eleventh on the grid in the number 3 Audi R8 LMS from Audi Sport Team Car Collection and were in contention for victory in the second half of the race. In the hot phase, they fought a thrilling duel with the number 99 BMW. In the end, the three Audi Sport drivers had to admit defeat by just 15 seconds.

Racing in formation
In the battle for victory, Audi had two more irons in the fire. When the race was restarted on Sunday morning after the interruption, the three Audi R8 LMS from Audi Sport Teams Phoenix, Land and Car Collection were racing in formation at the front of the field. However, two of the race cars with the four rings were handed a 32-second penalty on Sunday morning.
Car number 1 from Audi Sport Team Phoenix received its penalty for a mistake on exiting the pit lane. From twelfth, Nico Müller/Frank Stippler/Dries Vanthoor/Frédéric Vervisch fought back, temporarily led the race and, following an excursion and subsequent tire change in the final phase, ultimately finished in fifth position. The stop-and-go penalty for disregarding flag signals caused car number 29 from Audi Sport Team Land with Mattia Drudi/Kelvin van der Linde/Christopher Mies/René Rast to drop to twelfth. On crossing the finish line, the team had improved again to sixth place.
24h Nürburgring, results documents to download
Race
11 pages, EN
109.8 KB
24h
Nürburgring



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