A short but exciting two-hour race was the highlight of the first day at the ADAC 24h Nürburgring Qualifiers. Adam Christodoulou and Daniel Juncadella coped best with the changeable conditions on the legendary Nordschleife. In the Mercedes-AMG GT3 #2, they prevailed over the Porsche team of Lionspeed by Car Collection Motorsport #24 after 13 laps. At the finish, both cars were separated by just 1.173 seconds. In 120 minutes, this first heat of the weekend offered practically everything that makes racing on the Nordschleife exciting. Tyre poker and dusk did not make it easy for the teams, but the fans were rewarded with an entertaining race. Tomorrow, Sunday, there will be a second, then four-hour race. Those who don't want to miss the action at the prologue of the ADAC TotalEnergies 24h Nürburgring can still secure their ticket at the Nürburgring box office on Sunday. After a qualifying session in the morning (from 8:15 a.m.), the fastest teams will go into a top qualifying session at 10:30 a.m., where the pole for the race (start at 1 p.m.) will be determined.

The race will be broadcast live on the Nürburgring Youtube channel.

With victory, Christodoulou and Juncadella crowned a race day in which they presented themselves in strong form. They had already secured pole position in qualifying ahead of their brand colleagues Kenneth Heyer / Colin Caresani / Luca-Sandro Trefz / Marcel Marchewicz in the Schnitzelalm Mercedes-AMG #11. And Juncadella defended first place in the race as well and moved into the lead. With a series of fast laps, he initially seemed to be racing away unhindered. But a retrospective check of the start phase revealed a jump start by Juncadella, who received a 30-second penalty. "I guess I race in too many GT3 championships. There, the starting procedures are sometimes different and I probably made a mistake this time," Daniel Juncadella admitted. "But we mainly want to win the 24h and not necessarily the race today. So no problem." So it became exciting once again, but even after completing the stop-and-go that was due, the British-Spanish driver duo retained the lead. Adam Christodoulou, who steered the Mercedes-AMG GT3 across the finish line in first place, was able to joke afterwards about his team-mate's time penalty: "Daniel had probably decided that it shouldn't be too easy for us, but he did a bang-up job just like the team. The car ran great, even in these really difficult conditions. After our accident last week, we really didn't expect this success. The race otherwise went wonderfully and I'm already looking forward to the biggest race of the year for me!"

Porsche teams rewarded for faultless driving

Crossing the finish line in second place was the Manthey "Grello" #911 with Michael Christensen, Kevin Estre and Frederic Makowiecki. Starting driver Christensen pulled up to second place with the Porsche 911 GT3 R. He also benefited from the fact that other cars on the grid were relegated to the back of the grid due to sporting penalties or were dogged by bad luck. "We hadn't expected this success - but definitely hoped for it," Kevin Estre described afterwards. "Qualifying was okay, but we were a little short of the Mercedes-AMG. In wet conditions Michael made a super start and moved up to P2. We were then in P3 in between and fought with Lionspeed - on the penultimate lap Fred was able to pass them. That is a good sign. But for my taste Mercedes-AMG is still a bit too fast for us."

With third place on the podium, the #24 Porsche 911 GT3 R from Lionspeed by Car Collection was rewarded for a strong performance: in the #24 nine-eleven, Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet, Patrick Kolb and Patrick Pilet drove all the way to the podium from the fifth row of the grid. "We came here without much preparation and as a newly formed team and didn't know exactly what to expect," Mathieu Jaminet described. "Now we've managed third place - that's great!