No.80 Ravenol Mercedes remains fastest after processional, rain affected N24 Qualifying 2

Credit: Luna Maas

The Ravenol Mercedes No.80 continued to occupy the top spot, in what was an increasingly wet Qualifying 2 session at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, with ROWE BMW setting the fastest session time.

The session started out on a wet track, as a direct result of the hail that impacted Qualifying 1, with the times around much slower for the drivers.

Throughout it not much of importance happened, aside from moments like a spin from the fan favourite No.300 Dacia Logan at the Karussell, which caused a traffic jam, when its driver, Christian Geilfus, managed to turn the car around, as drivers tried to avoid it, while sticking to the rules in order to avoid possible penalties.

This was not the same case for the aforementioned Dacia, as it was later given a five-place grid penalty, for creating an ''unsafe situation'' while trying to recover from the spin.

Also the wet track caused some further spins and offs, one such being from Dorian Boccolaci in the No.17 Dunlop Motorsport Porsche, which caused some damage, that was fixed later by the team.

A number of penalties were also handed out due to Code 60 violations, with cars No.95 and No.777 penalized by starting after the starting group in the race, cars No.55, 317 and 776 penalized with 30 seconds at the end of the first race lap and cars No.18, 40, 941 and 945 finding themselves with a significant 45 second stop & go penalty for the race.

This is big news for the No.18 Lionspeed GP Porsche of Kyle Tilley, Jake Hill and Patrick Kolb, as their hopes for SP9 success take a massive hit.

As darkness set, rain started falling, with increasing intensity for some hour, resulting in not much track action for the last hour and a half of the session, with drivers trying to avoid damaging their cars, as was the case with the No.652 BMW that crashed in the Flugplatz corner with less than an hour to go.

The No.17 Porsche turned out to be a highlight of the session for the wrong reasons, as late on Alessio Picariello found himself with malfunctioning front lights, with the car being initially requested to clerk off the course, but the problem was fixed while the Belgian was on track, before returning to the pits with half an hour to go.

At session's end, the No.80 Team Ravenol Mercedes was still the fastest car, retaining the honour from Qualifying 1, with the No.1 ROWE BMW in the hands of Kelvin van der Linde, achieving the session's fastest time, with a 9:19.884.

As expected the overall times were slower and as such, after today's two Qualifying sessions, the Top 10 remains as follows:

Overall Top 10

1st No.80 Mercedes-AMG Team Ravenol - 8:14.9

2nd No.1 ROWE Racing BMW - +3.1s

3rd No.3 Verstappen.com Winward Racing Mercedes - +3.5s

4th No.99 ROWE Racing BMW - +3.6s

5th No.911 Manthey Racing Porsche - +6.7s

6th No.130 Red Bull Team ABT Lamborghini - +7.0s

7th No.77 Schubert Motorsport BMW - +11.6s

8th No.64 HRT Ford - +11.7s

9th No.16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi - +12.1s

10th No.17 Dunlop Motorsports Porsche - +12.2s