The two EFP:racing drivers Elia Erhart and Pierre Kaffer made a promising appearance at the 24h Nürburgring with the Juta Racing team. Together with their two driver colleagues “Selv” and Alexey Veremenko, they finished 17th overall in the shortest edition in the history of the endurance classic and secured fourth place in the PRO-AM category.

“It’s a real pity that there was a long break during the night due to dense fog and we were unable to resume the race on Sunday. But for safety reasons, the race management had hardly any other choice, so the cancellation was ultimately justified. Our thanks go to all the fans who kept their fingers crossed for us along the track despite the bad Eifel weather, and of course also to our partners—without whose support this participation would not have been possible at all,” Erhart and Kaffer agree.

Until the red flag stoppage on Saturday evening at 23:23, the driver quartet showed a strong performance. Kaffer placed the #71 Audi R8 GT3 EVO II in 17th position during the top qualifying session, which also meant fourth place in the PRO-AM category. He and his three driver colleagues maintained that position throughout the race under extremely challenging mixed weather conditions. Depending on pit stop phases, they were even running inside the overall top 15 at times.

After weather conditions failed to improve on Sunday, race control decided—following five laps behind the safety car—that the race would not be restarted. The effective driving time was only around 7.5 hours, making it the shortest Nürburgring 24 Hours in history.

“From a driver perspective, we were very well staffed, which would have paid off even more over a full 24 hours. A result within the top 10 would certainly have been possible. It’s a shame we couldn’t continue after the interruption. Huge praise to Juta Racing for the excellent preparation of our Audi R8 GT3 EVO II, and to my fellow drivers, who all delivered a flawless performance under these tough conditions,” says Erhart.

His teammate Kaffer adds: “I was really impressed with the commitment and effort Juta Racing put into this project, and like Elia, I believe we could have achieved even more under normal circumstances. Hopefully we’ll all get the chance to prove that together again next year. At this point, I’d also like to congratulate the SCHERER Sport Team PHX on their overall victory. They executed perfectly, and it’s fantastic that Audi was able to win this race once again.”

Text: Media-DaCo (Daniel Cornesse)
Photos: Communications Audi Sport customer racing / Portrait agency Kräling

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