First WIn For Mercedes At The Nürburgring 24

With a name almost as long as its bonnet, The Black Falcon Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 took the overall win in the 2013 edition of the ADAC 24 Rennen at the Nürburgring. The car was driven by DTM ace Bernd Schneider with Porsche Supercup regulars Sean Edwards, Nicki Thiim and Jeroen Bleekemolen. If winning the N24 was not a memorable enough, Bleekemolen had to run from the track during the night to be at the birth of twins... what a week end!

The Black Falcon SLS was in a hard battle with the Marc-VDS BMW Z4 driven by Martin, Piccini, Buurman, Göransson. Maxime Martine was at times lapping 40 seconds faster than the rest of the field and had an 8:22.088 lap four laps from the end of the race.

In third another Mercedes, the ROWE Racing SLS.

The race was (...shocker) punctuated by rain so heavy it had to be stopped overnight.

Full results on the ADAC 24 Rennen official site and lots of pictures on Dale's Bridge To Gantry and on Drive Cult

Andrew Mulholland/ DriveCult

200 mph tire fail on the Nürburgring

The right rear Yokohama on the Tean Black Falcon Mercedes SLS GT3 failed in spectacular fashion on the long straight at the Nürburgring.


Jeroen Bleekemolen suffered no injury and what's really amazing is how relatively little damage the SLS panzer is showing after such a massive shunt!

2011 VLN-1 Videos

BMW won the first VLN race at the Nürburgring, starting and ending first and second. Check out the start from this amateur video to see how the two ///M cars work in tandem to keep the Mercedes SLS behind them and get on their way.




Of course one caveat is that the BMW were running in the E1XP class along with the N.technologies P4/5c... the more populated top class, SP9, was won by the Black Falcon Mercedes SLS GT3 who actually had a faster lap time than the BMWs. 8:24.240 vs 8:25.231.

Video from the front would be exciting but ..there isn't any. This one, produced by RaceMedia.tv, is fun: a nice fight between the Car Collection Motorsport 911 GT3 Cup S of Peter Schmidt and a Mercedes SLS GT3. Onboard with nat sound start about one minute in

The SLS must be very either very restricted or have bad aero because the 911's kill it on the long straight.

Look carefully ahead and you can catch a glimpse of the Gliekenhaus P4/5 up ahead. That car, I would venture to say, did not live up to expectations, retiring after 8 laps and setting an 8"44 sec lap time, some 20 seconds off the class pace.

Schmidt finished 15th overall. full results HERE



Bonus video after the jump: Careful on that right curb in the middle of the Hatzenbach esses....

Sabine: She Cooks, She Saves!

I'm sure Sabine Schmitz can cook faster than you, probably makes water boil faster too. In this clip the famously fast fraülein of the Eiffel whips up some grub for team fabulous Frikadelli team before the most recent VLN race.

The rest of the video is 9 minutes of onboard from the team's Porsche 997 GT3 R including the race start and the incident when on the first lap of its first race, the Mercedes SLS AMG gets into a very avoidable accident. Got to love the fist pump as driver Nic Kentenich just squeezes between the Merc and the 'vette!




But of course Sabine is best know as cab driver. Here she is hacking in a 997 GT3 RS MkII during a Gentlemen Driver Club track day. All is well up to about 8:15 minutes in when she gets to Pflanzgarten.

Now, if you've driven at the 'ring, you know exactly how scary that section of the track is so you can imagine what losing the rear of any car, never mind a "junk on the trunk" 911, at that speed must feel like. I'm sure the video does not do that feeling justice, you have to at least have driven that particular roller coaster section.

"Check the tires" she says...I say check the passenger seat before the next client.



(let me put in a plug for Pistonspy.com, if you are into N-ring spy pix and videos it needs to be on your list!)
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Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 race debut video

The Gullwing GT3 SLS literally thundered through the Eiffel forest in its race debut in a VLN race, The Barbarossa Cup, this past Saturday.

The big AMG driven by Berndt Schneider ran in an "Experimental" class separate from the GT3 Porsches, BMW z4 and Audi R8. The best lap time was 8:32 (including the GP track) compared to the 8:21 of the 911 GT3 R of Lucas Luhr and Richard Westbrook or even the 8:24 of the Dörr Motorsport Z4. But VLN is not FIA GT so comparisons are not totally accurate.

For further reference, a 996 GT3 Cup Chris Harris was co-driving had a best lap of 8:53 and Sabine Schmitz lapped some unspecified GT3 in 8:27.

Wagnerian soundtrack aside, the car retired with 3 laps to go. But damn, that sound... turn it up!



More after the jump