GT3: Second place for Audi Sport customer racing

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.

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.