The #911 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R has retired from the 54th edition of the Nurburgring 24 Hours after just under four hours of running following an accident for Kevin Estre in the Brunnchen section of the track.
The ‘Grello’, alongside the #3 Winward Mercedes, was the dominant car in the early stages of the race, although even Estre’s team-mate Ayhancan Guven had no real answer to Max Verstappen’s speed. The four-time Formula 1 world champion pulled out a lead of more than 20 seconds over the reigning DTM champion.
After the driver change to Jules Gounon and Estre respectively, the chase began anew. Gounon had bad luck in a long Code 120 zone and got stuck behind the Dacia Logan, which has no speed limiter. As a result, he lost ten seconds in one fell swoop.
But before another duel could ensue, Estre suddenly spun out at Brunnchen. He hit the ground tail-first and was subsequently only able to park the Type-992 Porsche 911 because the damage was too severe. The Frenchman sat stunned in the cockpit for minutes, as he and team-mates Guven, Thomas Preining and Matt Campbell were forced out of the race.
The Grello wasn’t the only car to spin out in the ‘YouTube Corner’ a name it owes to numerous YouTube channels that capture spectacular scenes there, especially from tourist drives.
Right behind Estre, another incident took place in the same corner. Just as the area had been cleared, Arjun Maini had a serious accident in the #64 HRT Ford as he also skidded and crashed head-on into a car that had spun out in the opposite direction.
Although there was light rain at the time, the situation suggests a fluid spill, as the cars lost traction completely and abruptly.
Also out of the race are the #16 Scherer-Phx-Audi (Haase/Sims/B. Green), the #47 KCMG-Mercedes (Fukuzumi/Krohn/Pittard/Gamou), and the #45 Kondo-Ferrari (Perel/Marschall/Vermeulen/Neubauer).
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
– The Motorsport.com Team
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com
