The initial phase of the 44th ADAC Zurich 24-hour race will go down in the history of this event – and the two ROWE Racing BMW M6 GT3s were among the protagonists at the start of the race. After initial minor setbacks for both cars, the team from St. Ingbert is fighting for a place in the top ten in the final third of the legendary Eifel marathon with the #23 car in seventh place after 16 hours. The #22 sister car retired at around 4:00 a.m. CEST, after Klaus Graf was involved in a serious collision when lapping. The ROWE veteran remained unscathed.

On the first lap of the race, as the starting driver of the number 22 BMW M6 GT3, Graf moved up one place and into sixth; Dirk Werner moved the #23 sister car up from 15th to 13th. Then both ROWE Racing’s cars were driving according to plan until a severe storm washed away all plans in one fell swoop. After a downpour of heavy rain and hail, dozens of cars skidded helplessly across the track, which was covered in a white layer of hail in places. GT racers with more than 500 hp with slick tyres were unable to get up the inclines on the Nordschleife, the racetrack mutated into a car park within a matter of seconds. Race control reacted to the chaos with an inevitable suspension of the race, which lasted three hours in total.

Klaus Graf was one of the victims of the downpour, as he slid off the track into a crash barrier, slightly damaging the car. Then he was forced to stop in the Breidscheid section and only made it back to the pit an hour later, where Dirk Werner had already been for some time.

BMW works driver Philipp Eng from Austria, who had taken over the #23 car from Dirk Werner, initially fell foul of the restart since his engine would not start and was only got to go by the mechanics, who rushed to help. He dropped down from 11th to 74th. Markus Palttala in the #22 car got off to a better start. The Finn drove furiously in the initial laps after the restart and even took the lead. However, it wasn’t long before a puncture saw him drop down the field from what was third place at that point. Then with consistent driving, both cars fought their way back into the top ten spots during the night, until the advance came to an early end for #22.