Reigning Nürburgring 24h champions top the times in Thursday qualifying

Written by Benjamin Crundwell

Credit: Luna Maas

Media obligations done, the competitors got down to business for Thursday running as the first competitive action took place. The No.1 Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS, which won the race last year, topped both qualifying sessions with a fastest lap time of 8:10.580.

After a couple of feature races, Qualifying 1 took place at 13:00 local time, and seven hours later qualifying two started, for a three and a half hour session which ran into the night. 

Both qualifying sessions held the same significance, as an opportunity for SP9 cars to earn a spot in Top Qualifying. Also they were opportunities for cars in lower classes who won't make Top Qualifying to set a fastest lap which will decide their qualifying position.

The No.1 Scherer Sport PHX Audi topped the first qualifying session, with an 8:14.162, five seconds ahead of the No.48 Porsche. The next eight cars were separated by only a second and a half, led by the lone BMW M4 GT3.

After winning every NLS (Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie) race this year, there were three Porsche 911 GT3R's in the top five places of Qualifying 1. The German marque is undoubtedly favourite to win the race.

Qualifying 1 saw no terminal accidents happen, however the No.16 Scherer Sport Porsche suffered a rear drive shaft failure after only one flying lap. Similarly, the No.65 Ford also stopped on track with a driveshaft failure.

Credit: Luna Maas

The No.16 car's issues struggled into the later session, Qualifying 2. The Scherer Sport crew, having not already confirmed themself a spot in Top Qualifying, struggled to set a lap with traffic and slow zones.

On the last lap of the session, Laurens Vanthoor pushed the car on a nail-biting lap, which put the Porsche third in the session, and earnt it a spot in Top Qualifying. The other Scherer Sport car once again had a more relaxing session. Christopher Haase did a 8:10.580 early on, and maintained the top spot for the whole qualifying session.

The second place car was the No.28 Lamborghini, two places ahead of the sister Lamborghini, the No.27. All of the top five earnt a spot in Top Qualifying, which was rounded out by the No.34 Aston Martin.

The No.37 Aston Martin nearly made Top Qualifying, however Vanthoor's late lap meant it missed out by less than a tenth of a second.

Many other SP9 cars had already earnt a spot in Top Qualifying by showing pace in previous NLS rounds.

There was drama for the No.48 car who finished second in the first session, as they hit the wall at Metzgesfeld. The car was wrecked, and unable to get back on track.

The other major car facing problems was the SP8T No.150 BMW driven by Manuel Metzger and the YouTubers: Steve Brown, Jimmy Broadbent and Misha Charoudin. They are yet to confirm what the problem was, but they stopped half way round the Nordschleife and had to be towed back.

Those who qualified for Top Qualifying will get on track tomorrow at 13:20 local time (12:20 GMT), and can be streamed from YouTube.