1: Big Crowd
Race organisers released a crowd attendance figure of 230,000 for th 2022 ADAC Nürburgring 24 Hours, the latest of a series of events in 2022 that have seen major turnouts post-pandemic. Hours before the race start organisers were reporting that all campsites and car parks were full.
2: Post Race Penalty – And Race Exclusion
The final result of the 2022 ADAC Nürburgring 24 Hours remains unchanged after a post-race penalty dealt to the race-winning #15 Phoenix Racing Audi squad saw a 32 second time penalty assessed for the engine of the car being switched on during refuelling. That was not enough of a sanction to offset the 55 second victory margin scored but the team. A 5000 Euro fine was also levied for the incident.
A more significant penalty went the way of Hans Wehrman from the #125 Huber Motorsport Cup 2 Porsche team, he had his ‘Ring Permit revoked and was excluded from the remainder of the meeting after passing through a double-yellow zone (speed limit 120 km/h) at 220 km/h!
PROVISIONAL RESULT BY CLASS >>
4: Audi
The win is Audi’s 6th win in ten years and comes ten years after their first-ever overall win in 2012 (below).
5: R8 Generations
The 2022 win comes with a fourth different evolution of the Audi R8 GT3 car, the first 24 Hour race win for the new for 2022 EVO2 version of the Audi R8 LMS.
2012 and 2014 were won by the R8 LMS Ultra.
2015 and 2017 were won with R8 LMS GT3s.
2019’s win went to an R8 LMS EVO1.
6: Phoenix Racing
The 2022 win is the sixth for Phoenix Racing after a win in 2000 as Porsche Zentrum Koblenz, the 2003 win with Opel (below) and now four wins with Audi.
That total brings Phoenix one ahead of Team Schnitzer, now second in the overall ranking of winning teams, with Manthey Racing on seven wins.
7: Winning Drivers
The 2022 race crowns three double overall winners with Dries Vanthoor and Frederic Vervisch (both winners in 2019) and Kelvin van der Linde (who won in 2017).
Robin Frijns adds a Nürburgring 24 Hours win to his Le Mans LMP2 win last year.
8: Double Duty Drivers
Kelvin van der Linde takes the overall win whilst doing double duty for Phoenix Racing, Patrick Pilet scored a top ten finish for Falken Motorsport in his double duty for the team. Oddly both of the other cars retired after accidents.
9: Race Distance
The 2022 race distance equalled the race distance record – 158 laps, first set in 2017.
10: Race Leaders
10 different cars from seven different GT3/ SP9 marques led the race overall during the 24 Hours with the #26 Ferrari, #7 Lamborghini, #90 Aston Martin, #1 Porsche #20 & #99 BMWs, #3 and #12 Mercedes AMG, #15 and #22 Audis.
11: Fastest Lap
The fastest lap of the race went to Phillip Ellis in the #12 Bilstein AMG – 8:11.639.
12: Pole Position
Pole Position went on Friday to the #26 Octane 126 Ferrari, the Italian brand’s first pole at the race since the Hankook Farnbacher Ferrari 458 GT2 in 2011.
13: Falken
2022 marks the fourth occasion that the Falken team has been the best placed Porsche in the overall result. Oddly the 2022 race was also the first time that the team has posted a retirement since 2017.
14: Porsche
Falken’s ninth place finish matches their result in 2016 – oddly both results stand as Porsche’s ‘worst best’ result in the overall standings in the GT3 era.
15: Glickenhaus
The Glickenhaus SCG 004C was the first non-SP9 car home – 12 place overall for the SPX class winner.
16: First non-SP9/ SPX car home
The first non-SP9 or SPX car home was the Cup 2 class-winning #127 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992) of KKrämer Racing for Karsten Krämer, Christopher Brück, Moritz Kranz and Alexej Veremenko.
17: First Front-wheel drive car home
The TCR-winning #830 Hyundai Motorsport Elantra TCR was the first front-wheel drive car home with Manuel Lauck, Marc Basseng and Mikel Azcona, 18th overall and topping a Hyundai one-two in class.
18: Stellantis Management Day Out
The #89 SP3T Opel Astra OPC made the finish, fifth in class with a very special driver line-up – Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares joined by Group VP responsible for Motorsport (including the Peugeot LMH programme) Jean-Marc Finot, Director of Peugeot Sport François Wales and Jean Philippe Imparato, CEO of Alfa Romeo.
19: Raffaele Marciello – Tweaking the Vanthoor Tail
Laurens Vanthoor, eliminated in the clash with his brother Dries early in the race, later expressed his dismay and regret for the incident in a series of social media posts.
The incident elicited a jokey response from long-time rival Raffaele Marciello.
Next dinner in Vanthoor family I wanna be there
— Raffaele Marciello (@Team_RMarciello) May 28, 2022
Vanthoor Snr responded
I think you chances are higher to get invited by President Biden to the White House.
— Laurens Vanthoor (@VanthoorLaurens) May 29, 2022
20: Laurens Vanthoor – Bouncing Back!
See above – Post-race Raffaelle Marciello expressed his disappointment at falling short of a win at the Nürburgring.
One day I will win a 24H, but the day is not today
We tried but it wasn’t meant to be.
Thank you Luca, Philip, Manuel, HRT and AMG for the great work. pic.twitter.com/PUxjeL3mRk— Raffaele Marciello (@Team_RMarciello) May 29, 2022
And Laurens did not miss the opportunity for payback!
Maybe you should join that dinner with @vanthoordries1 and myself ? We have 11 24h victories together.. We can give you some advice ?
— Laurens Vanthoor (@VanthoorLaurens) May 29, 2022
