Laurens Vanthoor, Christopher Mies, Edward Sandstrom and Nico Mueller took a resounding victory at the Nurburgring 24 Hours for Belgian Audi Club Team WRT.
Team WRT were embroiled in a tactical Belgian battle with the #25 Marc VDS BMW of Maxime Martin, Lucas Luhr, Richard Westbrook and Markus Palttala after many of their immediate rivals fell by the wayside later in the event.
However, Team WRT’s proved to be more efficient in terms of overall fuel economy; managing to gain a stranglehold on the race around midday on Sunday and it was a lead they never relinquished.
“It’s incredible”, said Nico Mueller aftewr the race.
My three team-mates, Chris (Mies), Edward (Sandström) and Laurens (Vanthoor), did an awesome job. The team made no mistakes throughout the race and our car was running superbly. This was the first 24-hour race for the new Audi R8 LMS – and we made it across the whole distance without any problems, especially at such high speed. We were constantly under pressure and always had to give everything. This victory is a sweet reward for everyone.”
The #44 Falken Motorsport Porsche of Peter Dumbreck, Martin Ragginger, Wolf Henzler and Alexandre Imperatori ran solidly all weekend to grab the final spot on the podium. Despite being largely outgunned in terms of pace, staying out of trouble gave the Porsche squad the edge required when rivals ran into trouble.
Audi #1 in the N24
Image: Audi Motorsport