ROWE RACING will start the chase twice around the clock at the 45th ADAC Zurich 24h race Nürburgring from 21st and 24th on the grid this Saturday afternoon. In the top 30 qualifying on Friday evening, the two cars of the St. Ingbert squad were around five seconds shy of pole position, surprisingly won by the Glickenhaus car.
British BMW works driver Alexander Sims, who will contest the race in both ROWE RACING BMW M6 GT3s, steered the #98 car to 21st position in a time of 8:20.522, being the fourth fastest BMW driver. On his second timed lap, he was not able to better this time. Austrian BMW works driver Philipp Eng finished qualifying on the 25.738 kilometre long combination of Grand Prix circuit and Nordschleife three places behind his team-mate with a time of 8:21.266.
ROWE RACING had achieved the first goal of the Eifel weekend already on Friday morning – both cars advanced to top-30 qualifying, the deciding session in the battle for pole position. These 30 cars will be equipped with a blue light in the windscreen, to be more easily visible in the mirrors of slower cars. The #98 car, that Sims shares with Markus Palttala from Finland, Brit Richard Westbrook and Dutchman Nick Catsburg, booked its ticket for the top-30 shoot-out courtesy of tenth place in the combined qualifying result of the Thursday and Friday sessions. The #99 sister car with Sims, Eng, Belgian BMW DTM driver Maxime Martin and German Nordschleife expert Marc Basseng had followed directly behind in 11th place.
Since being founded six years ago, the team from St. Ingbert has competed in the 24-hour race every year and is aiming to claim another strong result in its seventh appearance at this endurance classic – maybe even the third podium finish. Last year, ROWE RACING has been best of the rest, finishing fifth behind a victorious Mercedes quartet. Due to the very long race distance, and one of the longest and most difficult circuits in the world, top results in a field numbering 158 entries are very much possible from these grid positions.
The race will be started on Saturday (27th May) at 15:30 local time; on Sunday (28th May) at around 15:30, the winner will be known. Like last year, the race will be broadcast live by RTL NITRO with record-breaking 26-hour nonstop coverage, with English-speaking commentary available as livestream at www.24h-rennen.de.
Hans-Peter Naundorf, Team Principal ROWE RACING: “Of course, you wish for better grid positions but if you take a look at the season so far they mirror the performance of all BMW cars. Other cars had more performance. Hopefully the Technical Commission will re-think the BoP once more before tomorrow. This was the result over one lap, but the race will be won or lost over 150 or even 160 laps. We will see what we can do. We have shown before that we are capable to win races from such grid positions – the true strength only is reflected in the race. We now will gather new strength, adapt our strategy and attack tomorrow.”
Alexander Sims, ROWE RACING #98 BMW M6 GT3: “It wasn’t a bad lap, but it seems we might be a little bit off the outright top pace – let’s see tomorrow. It is always a stab in the dark on the first lap in the top 30 qualifying because you aren’t certain of grip levels. But it is really nice to have a clear track.”
Philipp Eng, ROWE RACING #99 BMW M6 GT3: “It was great fun to race alone over the Nordschleife. The grid position is not what we had aimed for, but the race is 24 hours long. We have a consistent and drivable car. That is one of the key factors here.”
