After a pair of third places in the 24-hour races in 2013 and 2014, ROWE RACING doesn’t manage to bring a top result home this year. The team from Worms in Germany had to accept retirement for both of its SLS AMG GT3 cars in the marathon race that had a particularly strong entry. Particularly sad: the SLS AMG GT3 with starting number #23 retired from an excellent sixth place after 23 hours in the race. The ROWE RACING sister car with starting number #22 already had to stop during the night due to technical problems with a top ten result in reach.

The gullwing with starting number #23, driven by Nico Bastian (Frankfurt, Germany), Klaus Graf (Dornhan, Germany), Christian Hohenadel (Illingen, Germany) and Thomas Jäger (Munich, Germany) had started from eleventh place on the grid for the season highlight. In spite of having incurred some minor damage at an early stage already, the quartet showed a strong performance. When rain set in during the night, the SLS AMG GT3 set the fastest times by far in the field of 151 cars. At this stage, the team moved up as far as fourth overall.

In the second half of the race, the number #23 ROWE RACING gullwing initially continued its dominant display. In spite of continuing gearbox issues, the quartet behind the wheel managed to keep up with the front runners and hold on to its sixth place. One hour before the end of the 24 hours, a broken driveshaft then meant retirement: final driver Klaus Graf had to turn the number #23 SLS AMG GT3 back into the pits at a slow pace and park the car there.

For ROWE RACING’s sister car with starting number #22, driven by Maro Engel (Monaco), Jan Seyffarth (Querfurt, Germany), Renger van der Zande (Nijmegen, Netherlands) and double starter Thomas Jäger, the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring wasn’t a lucky affair either. Having started from 16th place on the grid, the gullwing incurred a puncture on the second lap of the race already. During the night, the quartet worked its way up into 13th place again. Another puncture and severe consequential damage then finally meant retirement for the number #22 car after having completed a little over ten hours and 61 laps in the race.

ROWE RACING team principal Hans-Peter Naundorf: “First of all, congratulations to the works-teams by Audi and BMW as well as the Falken Porsche for finishing on the podium. We have seen a great race at the highest level of competition. Especially in the difficult conditions during the night, we were able to deliver a very strong performance. Retirement for both of our cars, and one of them with so little time left before the end, is extremely sad, of course. Nevertheless, I am proud of the entire team that has done a tremendous job. Thanks for that!”.