Honda wins again at the Nürburgring 24 Hours

The Fugel Sport-run Castrol Honda team has won the TCR class in ADAC 24 Hours at the Nürburgring for the second year running, defeating the Hyundai Motorsport-run Veloster N after a race-long battle.
The car was driven by last year’s winners Tiago Monteiro, Dominik Fugel and Markus Oestreich, and this year were joined by touring car star Esteban Guerrieri, with Guerrieri and Monteiro on double duty this weekend, also competing in the supporting WTCR races.
Although the Honda qualified fourth and last in the four-car class, the car very quickly moved up into the lead of the classification, and was trailed by the two Hyundai Motorsport N cars, run with the support of Target Competition, an i30 N TCR for Luca Engstler, Manuel Lauck, Harald Proczyk and Antti Buri, and a Veloster V for Lauck, Moritz Oestreich, Peter Terting and Marc Basseng.
The i30 dropped out of contention seven hours into the race, as it lost several laps when it was given a mechanical black flag for exceeding noise limits, leaving the Veloster to lead the Hyundai charge. However, this car too lost ground due to some minor technical issues and dropped one lap behind the leading Honda.  
The race was run under constant rain throughout Saturday afternoon, but as the rain intensified and there a number of incidents as darkness fell, the competition was red-flagged at 22:30 local time, and wasn’t restarted until 08:00 on Sunday.
From then on, the Honda was again chased by the Veloster throughout Sunday’s portion of the race, which gradually dried out. Terting and Oestreich quickly put the Veloster back on the same lap as the leaders, and began to eat into the advantage, bringing it down to under four minutes as the conditions improved, until a surprise late shower with just under two hours to go. 
The Hyundai still couldn’t catch the Honda, which would win the race with Monteiro behind the wheel by just one lap ahead of Terting’s Hyundai, with the Bonk Motorsport Audi RS 3 LMS finishing on the podium, driven by Hermann Bock, Max Partl, Andreas Möntmann and Alex Prinz.

Race results
1. Castrol Honda Team, Honda Civic Type R (Monteiro/Guerrieri/Ma. Oestreich/D. Fugel), 78 laps
2. Hyundai Motorsport N, Hyundai Veloster N (Lauck/Mo. Oestreich/Terting/Basseng), 77 laps
3. Bonk Motorsport, Audi RS 3 LMS (Bock/Partl/Möntmann/Prinz), 75 laps

Picture: ADAC 24H