It looks like BMW is back to its winning ways in the
DTM but its nearest rival Audi has got its own back with a trio of 24-Hour race
wins this year
With victory in the recent Spa
24-Hour race Audi has made it a hat-trick of wins - Nürburgring, Le Mans
and Spa - and while BMW has yet to enter the fray with a machine eligible for Le Mans it was once
again a case of so close for the Z4 GT3s at Spa- Francorchamps in Belgium.
It was an event punctuated by
safety cars and even an hour's stoppage to clear a particularly bad crash but
in the end, after 24 hours of racing and 527 laps of the famous Belgian track,
the BMW Sports Trophy Team Marc VDS came home in second place just 7.077
seconds behind the winning Audi R8.
Audi: “King of Endurance Racing”
with Five International Endurance Race Winners Together for First Time
The Audi of René Rast, Markus
Winkelhock and Laurens Vanthoor had been battling with the Z4 of Dirk Werner,
Markus Palttala and Lucas Luhr through the night, with the two cars exchanging
the lead during pit stops. A close finish was expected but agonizingly for the
Marc VDS Team it was overhauled in the dying minutes on what is its local
track.
Marc
VDS Racing Team’s Mika Kallio may have been overhauled for second position with
four laps to go, but was demoted to third when the stoppage of the race saw the
result declared at the end of the 22nd lap.
The Z4 appeared to have the edge
in fuel efficiency and looked able to eke out just enough extra time on track
to edge the Audi, but it began suffering from an electrical problem affecting
the ABS and traction control in the final stages. Losing time, it was neck and
neck at the final pit stops with 40 minutes to go at which point the Marc VDS squad
had to take a gamble.
The
first four hours of the race were run in dry conditions. However, there were
still a number of incidents around the circuit. For Marc VDS, there were two
incidents of note.
The team opted not to fit fresh
rubber at the final stop giving it a 20-second advantage over the Audi, which
did take new tires on its last visit to the pits. Werner did his best to keep
up the pace but it was to no avail, Rast was taking three seconds a lap from
the lead and the two cars were line astern on lap 520. A lap later the Audi
came through at La Source and while Werner did all he could on failing rubber
there was no way he could fight back.
Maybe next year will be the Z4's
time at the Ring and Spa? We'd rather see BMW victorious in these events than
in the DTM.
