BMW lead the 2015 ADAC Nurburgring 24 Hours after the opening hour, the Bavarian brand dominating the front of the race in the first 60 minutes, enough for the leaders to complete seven laps of the 25km track.
Though it was the #26 BMW Sports Trophy Team Marc VDS of Dirk Muller that started from pole position it was the pair of Z4 GT3 from the Team Schubert squad that took the lead after both Muller and Andreas Simonsen in the #2 Black Falcon Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 made slugging starts from the front row.
Muller was able to move back into second place, behind leader Martin Tomczyk in the #20 entry and the trio of Beamers were able to begin to pull away from the pack, with Simonsen proving a stout obstacle for those caught behind. His was eight seconds behind before Lance David Arnold was able to breach his defences under braking at turn one to start lap four, Nicki Thiim taking the same route past in the #29 Audi Sport Team WRT a lap later.
By the time Thiim took the position the first pitstops had already started to shuffle the order, Tomczyk and Muller the first drivers to pit, leaving Joerg Muller to lead the race for two laps in the #19 Schubert BMW before he too pitted ahead of the Bentley of Lance David Arnold that had risen from eighth on the grid.
On track the #28 Team WRT R8 LMS took the lead of the race, though Christopher Mies is one of the drivers who still needs to pit for the first time.
The GT3 class had a relatively quiet start to the race, the first lap contact of note reserved for those teams in the second and third starting group, the #211 VW Scirocco spun around at turn one and one of the numerous older shape BMW M3s in the lower classes failing to make it off the GP loop for the first time before it needed recovering from the gravel trap.
However, the premier class was not without incident. As the pack behing Simonsen arrived at Pflanzgarten on the second lap yellow flags slowed them. While some drivers heeded the warnings others were slower to brake. The order at the bottom of the top 20 was shuffled, Darren Turner in the #7 Aston Martin Racing Vantage one of the major losers as he took to the grass to avoid those behind. The #22 ROWE Racing Mercedes of Maro Engel was less fortunate, picking up damage that forced an unplanned pitstop for repairs to the right-front of the SLS
2015 ADAC Nurburging 24 Hours overall standings after 1 hour:
1 – #19 BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert
2 – #84 Bentley Motors Lts
3 – #28 Audi Sport Team WRT
4 – #23 ROWE Racing
5 – #25 BMW Sports Trophy Team Marc VDS
Selected Class leaders
SP-Pro – #53 Toyota Team Gazoo Racing
SP10 – #87 Team Mathol Racing
SP8 – #50 Aston Martin Test Centre
SP7 – #92 Manthey Racing
SP4T – #109 Rotek Racing
SP3 – #146 Kissling Motorsport
