René Rast (#4 Phoenix Racing Audi R8):
“The last laps of the race were obviously very different than the previous laps, everybody was just cruising around. It was a different task for me to avoid crashing into slow cars. Obviously we had a bit of a gap to the second place car of two to three minutes, so it was okay. It was a bit of an emotional last lap for me. I was really good friends with Sean Edwards, last year he drove the winning car across the line and this year it was me. I’m very pleased to have done that.”
Christophe Hasse (#4 Phoenix Racing Audi R8):
“That was awesome! It’s great to get my second win for Audi and the Audi R8 LMS Ultra, I think it’s great. It’s such a difficult race to win. I think this race was harder than 2012 because there was such a big battle up front all the way until the end, there was no time to stop.”
Jeroen Bleekemolen (#1 Black Falcon Mercedes SLS):
“It was a pretty good race for us, we didn’t have any issues. All our drivers had a really good pace, there wasn’t much more we could have done. So if you look at it that way we can be really pleased with that result. We were very close for so long that it hurts a little bit to be second. But if you look at how many good teams there were, how many good drivers were competing, I think it’s one of the toughest races, if not the toughest race in the world to win. At Le Mans there are only a few in each class, while here, there are, well, a lot more. There’s so many Pro cars.”
Maro Engel (#22 Rowe Racing Mercedes SLS):
“It was really pleasing to secure a podium. This was my first 24-hour race here at the Nürburgring and also my first 24-hour race as a whole. So I’m pleased with the outcome. We did have some issues which eliminated us from the fight for the lead. We did need a little more luck to get the car on the top step. But at the same time we were lucky to get a space on the podium. [When the #20 went in the garage for repairs] we all suddenly said ‘let’s just bring it home’. We had a reasonable gap to the Porsche behind so we were okay. It’s just a shame we had a penalty for three minutes and two punctures that hindered our progress. We knew when we were fourth that we were okay with just finishing, but also in the back of my mind we knew we still had a chance of getting trophies. This was a crazy race. It was the hardest 24 hours of my life.”
