Aston Martin V12 Zagato in class lead after 9 hours
The hugely popular (300,000 spectators at the track) Nurburgring 24-Hour endurance race in Germany is currently in it’s 13th hour, but you’d never know it from the total lack of audio/visual coverage of the world’s second most important 24-hour endurance race.
That said the pair of super exotic Aston Martin V12 Zagato sports racers were running in 1st and 4th place in the SP8 class, before the number 5 car (green) was shunted from behind.
Equally impressive is the V8 Vantage N24 (#6), which was running in 3rd place in SP10GT4 class.
Chris Porritt, who was driving a second stint in the number 5 Zagato up to midnight gave an interesting perspective on night driving when he said:
“It’s odd to think that when I get back into the car it will still be dark! This is a magical place to be at night – campfires and fireworks are all around the track now and in darkness is easier to see where you are going; it focuses your vision.
“During the night it is as important as ever that we conserve fuel so I tend to brake a little earlier into the corners and managed to get nine laps from a tank.”
British Le Mans driver, Darren Turner, who was also driving a V8 Vantage for a second stint said:
“It took me a little while to get used to thew dark as I only had a couple of night laps during qualifying. It is quite a hard place to find your reference points in the dark here, but I was getting quicker.
“There was a lot of accidents that needed negotiating during my first stint – it’s quite eventful out there, but I’m really enjoying my first Nurburgring 24 hour experience: the car has been perfect.”
Nürburgring positions for Aston Martin at nine hours:
No. Car. Class Class Position
#3 V12 Zagato (red) SP8 4th
#5 V12 Zagato (green) SP8 1st
#6 V8 Vantage N24 SP10 GT 3rd
#62 V8 Vantage GT4 SP10 GT 1st
#75 V8 Vantage N24 SP10 GT 8th
#85 V8 Vantage GT4 SP8 6th
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