Manthey Porsche Versus ROWE BMW With Six Hours to Go

The battle for victory in the 53rd running of the Nürburgring 24 has developed into a battle between Manthey EMA and ROWE Racing as the No. 98 BMW M4 GT3 Evo closed to ten seconds off the race lead with six hours to go.

The No. 911 Porsche 911 GT3 R, driven by Kevin Estre, has remained out front after dominating since the red flag restart on Saturday evening, but has found itself under increasing pressure from the ROWE BMW.

A gap that stretched over two minutes by the halfway point has been gradually brought down as Kelvin van der Linde and then Raffaele Marciello put in charging stints on Sunday morning.

With six hours of racing to go, Marciello ran 10.212 seconds behind Estre’s Grello-liveried Porsche, with the nearest car three minutes behind.

The No. 28 ABT Sportsline Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Luca Engstler has been trading third place back and forth with the off-sequence No. 45 Realize Kondo Racing with Rinaldi Ferrari 296 GT3.

After its most recent stop, the Ferrari dropped to fifth behind the sole remaining Ford Mustang GT3, driven by Salman Owega.

The No. 17 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which was the only remaining bullet in the gun for the Stuttgart brand, has capitulated after two lengthy stops to address issues.

First, Ralf Aron brought the car into the pits with a suspected suspension issue, only to then return not much later after the car’s underbody appeared to have come loose.

The repairs have dropped the car to eighth overall, behind the No. 54 Dinamic GT Porsche and No. 27 Red Bull Team ABT Lamborghini.

The latter of those two cars is under investigation after an incident involving Daniel Juncadella, who made contact with the No. 303 Hyundai Elantra N Cup that pitched Jeff Ricca into the barriers.

Cup2 is led by the No. 948 Porsche 992 GT3 Cup of Tobias Mueller, while the No. 830 Hyundai Elantra N TCR continued to dominate the TCR class.