As the fourth hour of the race opened, the brief showers that had affected the opening stages passed, with more rain being forecast from 7:00pm to 9:00pm local time. This meant a brief period of incident-free running, after which Max Verstappen pitted the #3 Winward Racing Mercedes from the lead shortly after 6:30pm local, handing the car to Jules Gounon for the Frenchman’s first stint.
“It was good; initially I was a bit stuck in traffic, it was bit difficult to clear the cars, but once I got past, the weather kicked in and we had a few laps in slippery conditions, which is where I could make a difference,” Verstappen reported. “And then the car was good. I tried to stay out of trouble, but at the same time you have to push and try and be on the limit. It’s a difficult compromise to find but it worked out fine. We had a little moment where I turned in a bit early and brushed the barrier, but I got back together, it’s all fine.”
The sister #80 car (above) was pitted from fourth around the same time, with Maxime Martin staying aboard for a double stint. Kevin Estre meanwhile got back aboard the #911 Manthey Porsche (which had been single-stinted by Ayhancan Güven) rejoining about 23 seconds adrift of the leader. But a delay for Gounon behind the Dacia Logan under double-waved yellows allowed his fellow Frenchman to make reduce the gap to just eight seconds before too long.
The lead battle therefore looked set to reignite nicely, when disaster struck for Manthey. The rear of the 911 broke free through a right-hander, with no other car involved, sending Estre clattering into the barriers and badly damaging the back of the car. The entry was towed back to the pits by a course vehicle, but the inevitable retirement for the fan favourite was confirmed shortly after – fluid on the track being identified as the culprit.
Around the same time, Arjun Maini suffered a heavy crash in the #64 HRT Ford on the same oil, leaving it with damage at every corner to end its race instantly. Away from the Code 60 zones caused by these incidents, Dennis Olsen in the sister #67 Mustang snuck by Gounon in the #3 Mercedes to take the overall lead just shy of 7pm.
With 30 laps by the leaders and five hours of racing in the books, a battle developed for second between the #3 Winward Mercedes (still in the hands of Gounon), its sister #80 car (now piloted by Fabian Schiller following Martin’s double stint) and Conor de Phillippi in the #81 BMW M3 Touring (above). Schiller managed to nab second from Gounon as the trio navigated traffic; he now trailed leader Mattia Drudi in the #34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin by just over 30 seconds.
Around 8:30pm, heavy rain started to return to the area around the Grand Prix loop, catching out Drudi, who ran wide at turn 1. Both the #3 and #80 Mercedes elected to pit at this point and take wet tyres, with Lucas Auer taking over from Gounon and Schiller remaining on board for a double stint. Gounon reported: “A crazy stint out there, being on the medium tyre in the rain was very difficult. There was also the oil on the track, I nearly lost the car there. Very, very tricky conditions.”
There was then a very much non-routine pit stop for the #130 Abt Lamborghini, which had suffered a puncture leading to front bodywork damage and a trip through the gravel at Ahremberg. The car was pushed back into the garage in a further setback after the drivers had clawed their way back into the top 10 following Mapelli’s jump-start penalty.
Heavy rain at Brunnchen caught out several drivers as the clock ticked over 9:00pm, including the #44 Falken Porsche, the formerly leading #34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin, the #81 BMW Touring and the Pro-Am-class #33 Audi, although all managed to rejoin the track without major damage.
As the pitstops cycled through at the quarter-distance mark, it was a Winward Mercedes 1-2 at the head of the field, with Auer leading Schiller from Drudi. Dan Harper was fourth aboard the #99 ROWE BMW, while Bachler and de Philippi held fifth and sixth following their close shaves at Brunnchen. Laurens Vanthoor sat seventh aboard the #24 Lionspeed Porsche, with defending winner Augusto Farfus eighth in the #1 BMW. Fred Vervisch was now aboard the #67 HRT Ford in ninth, with 10th held by the leading Pro-Am entry, the #65 HRT Ford with Colin Caresini at the wheel.
Image courtesy of Frozenspeed
