Kiwi Jaxon Evans has claimed victory in the maiden 12 Hours of Nürburgring, competing for Falken Motorsports alongside Joel Eriksson, Sven Müller and Alessio Picariello in an event broken down into two 6-hour races with parc-ferme conditions between.
The Falken Motorsports Porsche GT3 R completed 79 Laps of the famous 20km circuit in the race to the flag.
The first six hours of the event challenged the field due to bad weather, with numerous incidents requiring multiple interventions, for both barrier repair and car retrieval.
Come 8.30pm, when the first six hours finished, it was the number 3 Falken Porsche with the lead after strong stints from the days drivers.
The beginning of the second six hours brought about a handicap start from pit lane, preserving the intervals between the runners as they had been at the conclusion of Saturday night.
Getting the tyres up to temperature challenged the team come Sunday, but they maintained their one minute advantage through the early proceedings.
The conditions, much drier, suited the Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Jakub “Kuba” Giermaziak and Kim Luis Schramm who quickly made up ground and looked set to take over control of the race.
Unfortunately for them, running out of fuel at the entrance to pit lane saw them have to comically push the car down to the box for fuel and general maintenance, resulting in a loss of over a minute.
This saw Evans and co come home with the win, with Giermaziak and Schramm holding on for second ahead of the Audi of Frank Stippler and Vincent Kolb.
Evans is only racing part time in the series this year, with an eye on the WEC where he is also racing. The win, however, is the perfect warmup for the historic 24 Hours of Nürburgring early next year.
Banner Photo Credit: Jaxon Evans (Facebook)
