Bittersweet Weekend at Nürburgring 24h Qualifiers
This weekend Toksport WRT was racing in Nordschleife for Nürburgring 24h Qualifiers race. It was the final showdown before 24 hour endurance race taking place on the Green Hell.
The former 6 hour race was actually two separate 3 hour races taking place in two days. On the first race, we could not do better than 14th place due to yellow flags and code 60 zones. Our drivers had the pace but it was Nordschleife’s nature holding us back. But later in the race, that nature will be on our side as our crew, including Julien Andlauer, Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet, managing through the ever-changing conditions. The race declared as “wet”, as there were multiple wet areas on the 25 km track. Then there was sun drying the track at some point and there was rain on another. As darkness falls on the track, we came to finish line in 6th place, but more importantly safe and sound. It was a good rehearsal, showcasing what to expect in the 24 hour race.
However things changed on the second race. As we prepared the car and went out for warm-up, there were some issues reported by our drivers. While we were checking the car and making sure that all the components are %100 perfect, we had to skip the qualification session. Which meant that we had to start from the back of the grid. But as a perfectionist team, we wanted to set the car perfectly, so we also skipped the formation lap and started from the pit-lane.
That decision paid off as we were 10th place at the end of the first hour of the race, which we started as 30th from the pit-lane. But then, issues started again and even if they were minor things, we did not take any risks as we were only two weeks away from the main event. Instead, we took the opportunity to troubleshoot the problems and saw the race as a test.
