May 21, 2012

Rings over the 'Ring.


Audi scored a 1-2 finish in an accident filled 40th edition of the ADAC 24H Rennen at the Nürburgring.

The guys at Radio LeMans made an excellent point sometime during their commentary: Endurance racing used to be something of a turtle vs hare deal, now all the cars a hares and hares that don't break down. 

What that means is that to win you have to drive 11/10th all the time and nobody can afford that little extra margin that traditionally was the characteristic of the endurance racer.  When you drive 11/10th, crashes will happen, especially when drivers are looking for any small hole through slower traffic.
Even the very experienced like Klaus Ludwig can get caught up



There were many accidents that were just plain stupid,  the most outrageous happened at the finish line on the last lap when a Renault Clio slammed into the back of the Manthay Porsche limping across the line. There was also a Cayman driver who completely missed the yellow flags for Bleekemolen's crash on the long straight and managed to spin himself into the aarmco right in front of all the safety workers.

Our friend Sergio Negroni's car was involved in a couple of shunts and he himself said it was the scariest 24 he has done so far.  Looking forward to hearing more about it.

In the mean time, hop after the jump for your super sized, desktop...heck, poster sized galley of R8 LMS awesomeness courtesy of Audi.




Link for iPad users

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