News and Quotes Warm-Up

At the now completely wet Nürburgring, the warm-up on Saturday morning offered the teams the final possibility to check the conditions for the 48th edition of the ADAC TOTAL 24h Race. Only eight cars succeeded in setting a time below 10 minutes. With the HRT Mercedes AMG GT3, #4 , the pole-sitter that will be raced by the line-up Christodoulou / Engel / Stolz / Metzger, being the fastest.

#1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 (Müller / Vanthoor / Vervisch / Stippler)

Nico Müller: “It’s rather wet and slippery, out there. The rain just began to fall heavier – an omen for the race? We certainly will start into the race on wets, must find the perfect tyre pressure and keep the car on the track. Due to the wet and cold conditions it certainly will be one of the most difficult 24h Races ever. I’m not yet completely happy with our setup, we still have to work in this area. The pace is good but I still lack some trust in and feel for the car. And that’s what you have to have, particularly in the night when things tend to get difficult.”

#16 Ferrari 488 GT3 Mj18 (Kohlhaas / Rogivue / Köhler / Szymkowiak)

Nikolaj Rogivue: “In the cold out there warming up the tyres is difficult. Therefore, the car is sliding extremely and you have to work on the wheel all the time. The conditions are really challenging and you have to focus on finishing the race without damaging the car.”

#19 Porsche 911 GT3 R Imperatori / Liberati / Burdon / Olsen)

Edoardo Liberati; “It was rather wet. And at the Nordschleife the rain was particularly heavy. But it was just the warm-up and it was about familiarising myself with the car’s handling. I went out on the Monsoon tyres.”

#26 Ferrari 488 GT3 Mj20 (Grossmann / Trummer / Hirschi / Ludwig)

Luca Ludwig: “We tested different kinds of wets. We all completed a lap to adapt to the conditions. It arguably will remain rainy and wet and so, we all should have the opportunity to get ourselves into the groove. The steps we made regarding the tyres are really amazing. After all, we started the development work only at the beginning of the year. We made out dry-weather tyre work perfectly – that’s why we have been so fast, in the season so far. The car also delivered on intermediates, so we now have to find out what we can do on the wets. I’m confident that we will succeed. Predicting the race is impossible – I hope we won’t make a lot of mistakes and finish without getting involved in accidents.”

#30 Porsche 911 GT3 R (Abbelen / Siedler / Müller / Renauer)

Klaus Abbelen: “We adapt to the conditions and still made some setup adjustments. We sorted this car out rather well while there still is some work to do on the #31 Kern / Jaminet / Martin / Arnold (Porsche 911 GT3 R).”

#44 Porsche 911 GT3 R (Bachler / Müller / Dumbreck / Ragginger)

Klaus Bachler: “We checked everything, calibrated the setup and changed several trifles compared to yesterday. The weather conditions arguably won’t change in the forthcoming 30 hours. The entire circuit is wet and the temperatures are extremely low. Therefore, everybody will have to work hard to get their tyres to working temperatures. Bit as I said, that’s a problem everybody will have to cope with.

#98 BMW M6 GT3 (Wittmann / Auer / Blomqvist / Eng)

Marco Wittmann: “It’s clearly wetter than yesterday and therefore, you try to adapt your setup. But at the end of the day it wasn’t too bad out there. We will have to live with these conditions in the race. A race that will be extremely difficult.”