SUMMARY: BMW sat in control at the front of the field after the first hour of racing at the Nurburgring – with the #19 Schubert car of Muller/Sims/Werner/Wittman in the lead.
Polesitter Joerg Muller in the #26 Marc VDS BMW had dropped to fourth as the field powered down the front straight and through the first corner of the GP loop. Everyone in the lead group made it onto the Nordschleife for the first time without incident and it was the #20 Schubert BMW of Martin Tomczyk that lead them round initially.
Muller had recovered to second by the time the field came around to start its second lap, with the #19 Schubert BMW third in the hands of Dirk Muller. Andreas Simonsen was fourth in the #2 Black Falcon Mercedes, with Lance David Arnold having made a great start to get the #84 Bentley into fifth, ahead of Nicki Thiim in the leading WRT Audi, the #29.
Running seventh after the first lap was the sister #28 WRT Audi, driven by Christopher Mies, while eighth was the #4 Phoenix Audi of Marcel Fassler. Ninth and 10th were held by Lucas Luhr in the #25 Marc VDS BMW (who lost a few places at the start) and Christian Hohenadel in the first of two ROWE Racing Mercedes.
Battling through traffic began almost instantly, as the leaders caught up to the back of the third starting group early on lap two. The #19 Schubert BMW briefly moved up to second during lap two, but Farfus found a way past again to retake the position by the start of lap three.
There was a right-rear puncture for the #71 Teichmann Racing Porsche 911 Cup in the SP7 class on lap two, while the venerable #147 Opel Astra was in the pits being examined by its crew. The #174 BMW Z4 also came into the pits at the end of the second lap.
Out front, the three BMWs had put some space between themselves and the rest of the field, while a little way back Arnold in fifth was pressuring fourth-place man Simonsen hard as they came around to start lap three.
There was some trouble going into one of the speed-limit zones on lap two – with many cars having to brake hard to avoid hitting those in front. The #22 ROWE Racing Mercedes of Maro Engel came limping into the pits with front-right wheel and tyre damage after apparent contact with another car and the #007 Aston Martin of Darren Turner lost some positions after taking avoiding action.
Meanwhile, Arnold got ahead of Simonsen’s Mercedes into fourth in the #84 Bentley at the start of lap four, while further down the field, both Lucas Luhr in the #25 Marc VDS BMW (12th) and Christopher Haase of the 2014 race-winning Audi crew (ninth in the #1 R8) were lapping quickly in traffic.
Arnold in the now fourth-place Bentley wasted no time closing up on the leading trio of BMWs, meanwhile the #5 Black Falcon Mercedes (Yelmer Buurman) and #11 HTP Bentley (Christopher Brucke) came in for scheduled pitstops.
Several more leading cars pitted on lap six, including the #26 Marc VDS and #20 Schubert BMWs, the #4 Phoenix Audi and the #8 Haribo Mercedes. Marcel Fassler handed the #4 over to Frank Stippler as the first hour drew to a close.
Stephen Errity
