ROWE Racing win Nürburgring 24h after penalty for Manthey Porsche costs them victory

Written by Aaron Carroll and Benjamin Crundwell

Credit: Luna Maas

The No.98 ROWE Racing BMW driven by Kelvin Van Der Linde, Raffaele Marciello, Jesse Khron and Augusto Farfus have won the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring in controversial fashion, as the No.911 Porsche crossed the line first but had a penalty for an earlier collision with an Aston Martin.

The SP9 (top class) cars roared down to turn one at 16:00 local time. Thomas Preining led the field in the No.911 Manthey EMA Porsche, otherwise known as Grello. The No.45 Ferrari started second with David Perel, but dropped to third on the first lap after being overtaken by the No.14 Mercedes driven by Maro Engel.

The race was red flagged only 90 minutes in when the pit lane suffered a power outage. It took a few hours, but eventually the race was ready to go again. The No.911 once again led the field away, this time in the hands of Kevin Estre.

The No.33 Falken Motorsports Porsche was running in second place bfor a long while however it's race ended abruptly. One of the Cup 2 cars spun on the exit of the turn two, unsighted, the Falken Motorsports car smashed into the Cup 2 car. It returned to the garage but the damage was too extensive.

There was trouble for both Audis in the first half of the race, as the No.8 had a spin and then the No.1 Audi hit the wall, finishing it's race.

For more information on the first 12 hours of the race, click here.

Credit: Luna Maas

As the second half of the race began the sun rose and the No.911 Grello Porsche continued to lead from the No.98 Rowe BMW (the lone BMW in the SP9 class) and the No.34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin.

The No.17 Team ABT Lamborghini was fourth and the No.17 Team GetSpeed Mercedes fifth.

The No.45 Kondo Ferrari was on a significantly offset strategy, so it was flicking between third and sixth for most the morning. It was unclear which of these positions would be the final one for the only GT3 Ferrari, but with a few hours to go, its race ended in the wall.

As the morning got ever brighter, many cars continued to drop out, from accidents or technical issues. The No.44 Falken Motorsport Porsche was suspected to have had a drive train issue when it pulled off on the Döttinger Höhe.

The No.34 Aston Martin also retired from third with power loss, and wasn't the only Aston with problems as the No.169 stopped in the middle of the track with smoke escaping from the bonnet.

The No.17 Mercedes driven by Lucas Auer was also in a strong position, before it had to park in the garage for repairs. On it's out lap its problems returned and the Mercedes had to sacrifice more time by returning to the garage.

As fans started to wake up, there were two major crashes. First, Daniel Juncadella hit a Hyundai TCR car while exiting a code 60. The No.27 Lamborghini of Juncadella survived the incident, but with a huge penalty. The Hyundai on the other hand bounced down the barrier, out the race.

Credit: Luna Maas

The second incident came when the No.74 Aston Martin hit the fan favourite Dacia Logan at Flugplatz. Both cars had significant damage and could not return to the track, especially the Aston Martin who lost its full front end.

The major storyline throughout the morning was that was No.911 Porsche's pace had slowed and the No.98 BMW was catching behind. The gap was over two minutes at it's biggest point but Raffaele Marciello worked the gap down to less than a second.

Right when the BMW was on the tail of the Porsche, Estre tried to slide the No.911 down the inside of a back marker, the No.179 Aston Martin, at the miss-hit-miss corner. The No.179 did not see the Porsche on it's inside and closed the door. Estre went up onto the kerb to avoid the Aston Martin but they still made contact, sending the No.179 into the wall.

The impact sent the Aston flying onto it's roof, where it came to a rest. The driver was brought to the medical centre, and then to hospital for precautionary checks but the team confirmed he was okay.

Estre continued on, battling with Maricello, before giving the car up to teammate Ayhancan Güven.

During the two hour interlude until a decision was made by the stewards, the BMW managed to overtake the No.911 and make a small gap. The No.911's winning chances was reduced when they received a 100 second penalty for the contact.

Credit: Luna Maas

The team were due to serve the penalty during their next pit stop, but they continued as normal. Manthey EMA had gone to the stewards to appeal the penalty, in an attempt to repair their chances at a race win.

With 90 minutes remaining, we still had no decision on the penalty over four hours after the original incident. The No.911 held the lead with Kevin Estre at the wheel, and the No.98 BMW was around 10 seconds behind with Kelvin Van Der Linde taking the final stint.

Van Der Linde began to close the gap as we entered the final hour, the gap reaching under a second with 50 minutes to go. He brought the car in from second a lap earlier than Estre, so the BMW crew would need a longer pit stop than the No.911.

Just before his pit stop, the Porsche driver had a scary moment through traffic, taking to the grass to get past a pair of slower cars.

Estre came out from his stop eight seconds ahead of the BMW, with 30 minutes remaining in the race.

The third placed No.28 ABT Lamborghini got stuck in the pits for much longer than they would have liked. They dropped off the podium and down to fifth place, ceding place to the No.54 Porsche and No.65 Ford.

As the No.911 started the final lap, the gap was just under 20 seconds. It was still unclear about the status of their penalty, but what was clear, this race was going to be decided in the stewards office, long after the cars had taken the chequered flag.

Estre crossed the line to win on the road, but the penalty dropped him behind the No.98 ROWE BMW. So Kelvin Van Der Linde, Raffaele Marciello, Jesse Khron and Augusto Farfus took victory provisionally in the 2025 24 Hours of the Nürburgring.

News broke on the final lap that the appeal of the penalty was rejected.

The pair were a lap ahead of the No.54 Dinamic GT Porsche who rounded out the podium. The No.28 Lamborghini just managed to get past the No.65 Ford on the final lap, to seal fourth place overall. The Mustang had an incident at the final corner of the race.