DSC caught up with 2016 Nürburgring 24 Hours pole-sitter Maro Engel moments after he received the James Glickenhaus Trophy, following his extraordinary 8:14.515 lap in his #9 Bilstein-liveried Black Falcon Mercedes AMG GT3 on a far from fully dry circuit and with a yellow flag zone to protect the stricken #911 Porsche.
On Track Conditions:
“That was as difficult as you can experience the Nordschleife, on slick tyres, with a dry line in most paces but in some still damp and wet, it requires absolute maximum concentration and to be honest with you I had a big, big slide on my outlap when I wasn’t even pushing that hard.”
Discussing the decision to drop back at the start of the session:
“I thought about what I would do but until you see the track conditions you don’t really know. It was certainly damp in turns 1 & 2 and you don’t wan to be the first car to come across damp patches on every lap.
“I let René (Rast) through and looked at the rest of the circuit and found that Bergwerk was still quite wet and then made a decision to let other cars through, so I let Adam (Christodoulou) through and backed up a little bit to hope to give the track some time to dry. At the end of the day it worked out pretty well.
“For us the key was the tyre strategy.”
On Estre’s car stranded on track:
“The team informed me really well about the situation and a big compliment for th race officials for doing what they did with the yellow, then the double yellow and I think it was a fair solution for everyone.
“If they had tried to remove the car certain cars and drivers would have benefited and certain others would have has been disadvantaged. I think it was fair, and it was safe.
Were you aware how good a lap that was?
“I knew I’d done everything I could, that I’d put everything together that I could and done a mega lap but obviously I didn’t know if anyone else could beat it. I sat in the car in parc ferme for everyone else to come through and I tell you if feels like an awful long wait.”
