The ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring remains Germany’s reference endurance race: the 53rd running on 21–22 June 2025 used the 25.378 km Nordschleife plus GP loop and doubled as Round 2 of the Intercontinental GT Challenge. Manthey EMA put the “Grello” Porsche on pole courtesy of Kevin Estre’s 8:12.741, while ROWE brought a single BMW M4 GT3 Evo as Munich’s spearhead. Attendance set a new high around the Eifel hills with roughly 280,000 fans on site. Official timing recorded 134 starters with 88 classified and 141 laps covered by the winner. 

Pre-race form pointed to Porsche depth anchored by Manthey’s front row, with Dinamic as support and a lone BMW threat from ROWE. The paddock focus was on long high-load sections such as Schwedenkreuz and the brake spikes into Tiergarten: could anyone keep tyre life and rhythm in traffic long enough to control pit cycles. The grid complexion fit that script and suggested clean air would be scarce once the field compressed at night. 

The race itself pivoted twice. Ninety minutes after the start a power failure in pit lane shut down refuelling and forced a red flag; the restart at 19:45 local time reshuffled stint lengths and erased early margins. Through the night Manthey re-established control, only for ROWE to chip the gap back on Sunday with steadier traffic management and crisp out-laps after stops. The decisive turn came with just hours to run: Estre, lapping a lower-class Aston Martin, was judged to have caused a collision that sent the GT4 into a roll. Manthey’s Porsche took the flag first on the road by 22.190 seconds, but race control applied a 100-second time penalty that flipped the order on classification and withstood protest on the final lap. ROWE’s No. 98 BMW for Augusto Farfus, Jesse Krohn, Raffaele Marciello and Kelvin van der Linde won ahead of Manthey’s No. 911, with Dinamic’s No. 54 Porsche completing the podium.

Ambient conditions were benign by Eifel standards and the track rubbered in steadily. That rewarded aero efficiency and stable rear temperatures through the fast stuff while elevating brake energy management at the heaviest stops. Leaders protected track position by nailing the first two laps after each stop to clear Döttinger Höhe without a tow, which proved as valuable as any outright pace advantage.

One small materials note from my day job: the cars that kept leading edges clean for 24 hours tended to sustain tyre and brake temperatures in a narrow band; in PPF installs the same principle applies when sealed edges and a stable heat-gun temperature keeps tiny defects from compounding across a long job.

Favorites set the tone, but execution and a late ruling wrote the result. Finish: P1 ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 Evo No. 98: 141 laps; P2 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R No. 911 after 100 s penalty; P3 Dinamic GT Porsche 911 GT3 R No. 54.

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Wessen Char is UPPF’s petrolhead who still mourns the loss of Saab (and drove her 9-5 NG till 2025). She travels between US and Europe to cover auto events. She acknowledges the chic tech of EVs but wonders if the inexorable move to everything digital is ultimately all-better. Analogue had more soul somehow :)

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