Team BMW wins the 2010 Nürburgring 24 hours race

Team BMW Motorsport has won the 2010 24-hour race at the Nürburgring, five years after its last victory at the endurance classic. The No.25 BMW M3 GT2 driven by Jörg Müller (DE), Augusto Farfus (BR), Uwe Alzen (DE) and Pedro Lamy (PT) claimed Munich’s 19th victory by crossing the finish line first after 154 laps of the 25.378 km circuit, despite gearbox problems in the last three hours. They inherited the lead from Porsche’s 911 GT3 R Hybrid, which engine gave way with only an hour and 45 minutes left.

An impressive fight back saw the second M3 GT2 driven by Dirk Werner (DE), Dirk Müller (DE), Andy Priaulx (GB) and Dirk Adorf (DE) finish seventh in front of 220,000 spectators. A crash, while swerving to avoid a collision, resulted in the them losing an hour in the pits early on in the race, dropping back to 182nd. After replacing the front-left suspension, radiator and the rear-left shock absorber, car number 26 worked its way back up the field lap by lap.

The two BMW Z4 GT3 cars (numbers 76 and 69), run by Schubert Motorsport and Dörr Motorsport respectively, rounded off an excellent outing for BMW by finishing fourth and ninth. In addition, BMW teams secured ten class wins at the Nordschleife. Of the 198 cars lining up for this year’s event, 63 were BMWs.

“This win reminds me of the triumph in Le Mans in 1999. I have never known excitement like I experienced today. After some of our direct rivals fell by the wayside, our victory was also hanging by a thread. The tension was enormous for all of us, so the relief was all the greater when the car crossed the finish line,” a joyful Mario Theissen, BMW Motorsport Director said of the win.