Gran Turismo 5 creator Kazunori Yamauchi raced at the real 2011 Nurburgring 24 Hours this weekend, and after a dramatic series of events, finished first-in-class with team-mates Tobias and Michael Schulze, and Yasuyoshi Yamamoto.
Despite mechanical problems which cost them some time, the team were able to put in consistent lap times to bring themselves back to 36th place overall as Kazunori Yamauchi himself drove across the finishing line. They achieved 134 laps in 24 hours, 2 minutes and 26.9 seconds, with a fastest lap of 9:17:707.
Meanwhile it wasn’t quite such a happy event for the two Need for Speed sponsored teams. The number 4 car was forced to retire with a mechanical failure, the number 76 car was forced out following a collision with an SLS, and the number 77 car was in a dramatic cash which sent the car flying over the railings. That left all the Need for Speed Team Schubert cars out of the race, and two of the BMW Z4 GT3 cars destroyed.
The overall win was taken by the Porsche 911 GT3 of Team Manthey, with drivers Lieb,Luhr,Bern and Duma taking the lead on Saturday evening and eventually completing 156 laps and almost 4000 kilometres. The only hiccup for the team throughout the race was a faulty petrol pump which cost them a minute when they had to push the car to the next working fuel pump – but aside from that, they had a pretty faultless race after taking the lead late on Saturday evening.
Leave a Reply