Despite dire expectations of rain, rain and more rain for the first of the three qualifying sessions, a funny thing happened – it didn’t rain! True, it was cold and gloomy all evening, but the anticipated deluge simply went elsewhere. This made for an intriguing, if ultimately largely meaningless, four hours and ever increasing laptimes.
DSC’s Sören Herweg caught up with Marc Basseng before the start to find out how he’d be balancing his Nürburgring 24 and WTCC duties over the weekend; “I’ll be doing my two mandatory laps tonight and then will be jumping in my road car for the drive to the Salzburgring; I reckon that will take me four and a half hours.” A quick look online revealed that the distance between the two circuits is 725km, which meant that he was intending to complete the journey at an average speed of 160kmh/100mph. “Racing finishes at 2.15 on Sunday afternoon in Austria – I’ll then get on a private jet for the journey back here. I should be back here in time for the start, and then I’ll do the second stint.”
The three other drivers on double-duty this weekend – Mike Rockenfeller, Martin Tomczyk and Augusto Farfus – would not be at the Nürburgring until after the race had started, with all three having been given a concession re the mandatory laps. They would complete the DTM meeting at Brands Hatch before travelling to Germany and perhaps wouldn’t be making their race debuts until daylight returned on Monday morning.
A sign of the improving conditions came when the #9 Black Falcon Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 posted the first flying lap of the evening – 9:36.898; already 43 seconds quicker than the fastest time from the wet Free Practice session.
This time would remain at the top of the timing screens for the best part of an hour before the #22 Rowe Racing SLS went top, before itself being usurped by the #2 Prosperia-C. Abt Audi; René Rast lowering the bar to 9:22.032.
Stefan Mücke, #007 AMR Aston Martin Vantage GT3: “There’s still a lot of water on track, but we’ve almost got a dry line now – in some places it’s wet and in others it’s dry, but it’s getting easier all the time. The fog’s not an issue. I took the car out for a lap at the start to check the car, but Darren’s in there now.”
Marcel Fässler, #1 G-Drive Racing Audi R8 LMS ultra: “I went out on full wets at the start, but it was already too dry for those but still too wet for slicks; we need something in between. We’ve already qualified for the Top 40 session, so our main focus this evening has to be on finding a set-up for the mixed conditions. The race is going to be messy, so there’ll be a lot of compromises. We just have to stay focussed and learn as much about the conditions and the tyres as we can.”
With 100 minutes of the session gone, 174 cars had set a time, with 21 of them having dipped below the ten-minute laptime barrier. The #9 SLS improved to third with a 9:28.541, having dropped to tenth with its earlier time, but the timing screens would soon have to cope with a whole raft of faster times as the conditions continued to improve. In the space of half an hour, the fastest lap time went from 9:16.776 (#23 Rowe SLS) to 9:11.783 (#22 SLS) to 9:09.329 (#50 Manthey Porsche 997 GT3 R) to 9:07.014 as Richard Göransson took the #26 Marc VDS BMW Z4 GT3 to the top of the pile.
Timo Bernhard, #18 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RSR: “It’s getting drier and drier all the time, and if you’re out there at the right time you’ll get the benefit from it. Lucas set our [4th fastest] time and is staying in.”
By the time DSC had left the media centre and arrived at the garages, the pole had passed through the hands of the #3 G-Drive Audi and landed in the hands of the #123 Schulze Motorsport Nissan GT-R GT3, courtesy of a mighty 8:52.889 from Michael Krumm; meaning that the VDS Z4 was already 12 seconds off pole.
By this point of the evening, DSC’s team of snappers arrived back at the media centre to report that the fog was getting bad at Schwalbenschwanz. However, drivers were reporting that visibility was still good and the fog wasn’t worsening.
With 50 minutes to go, the top ten was #123 (Nissan), #29 (Audi), #3 (Audi), #19 (BMW), #21 (Mercedes), #23 (Mercedes), #11 (Porsche), #18 (Porsche), #26 (BMW) and #20 (BMW). The sudden improvement in pace had dropped the #007 Vantage from the top six to 23rd, 21st in SP9.
The #18 RSR was the only non-SP9 car in the top ten and improved to second with an 8:54.607, closing the gap to the leader to 1.718s. Five cars had set a time below nine-minutes, while the difference in laptimes between the 1st and 175th cars was 4:46.398 at this point.
But we had to remember that the conditions were still a big factor and a quick look back to 2012 showed that Krumm’s time would have been good enough only for 44th on last year’s grid. And suddenly the Nissan found itself a dozen seconds behind the fastest car as the #10 SLS completed its latest lap with an 8:39.989 with half an hour remaining.
The #2 Audi managed to go second – still 11s behind the #10 – but then Krumm closed the gap to just 1.7s in the #123 Nissan. The SLS’s time would not be beaten in the remaining time, but of rather more concern to the team was the car’s failure to get back home as it was reported to have broken down.
Several cars did improve in the final stages – the #8 Haribo Porsche climbed back into the top 20 after languishing at the tail of the SP9 class for much of the evening, while the #63 Black Falcon SLS ended up in tenth place after a late push.
The #45 Timbuli Racing Porsche 997 GT3 R trumped them all, however, by jumping to fourth almost ten minutes after the chequered flag had first flown.
The #18 Porsche headed SP7 in sixth overall, with the #12 Wochenspiegel Porsche RSR second in class in 26th.
SP8, meanwhile, was headed by the only Ferrari in the field – the #76 GT Corse 458 – which ended up 23rd overall on 9:11.006, 20 seconds ahead of the #005 Aston Martin Vantage which had led the class for much of the session.
The #65 Nova Race Ginetta G50 was the early leader of the SP10 GT4 class…
…but dropped back to fourth by the end behind the #56 Porsche 997 GT4 and two Bonk Motorsport BMW M3s.
The first qualifying session had provided much entertainment, but with dry weather expected for both of Saturday’s qualifying sessions, the chances are that things would look very different by close of play on Day 2.
MH
