After 41 laps of racing on the gruelling Nurburgring Nordschleife, Mercedes AMG Team Black Falcon took the win with its #5 AMG GT3 of Yelmer Buurman, Thomas Jager and Jan Seyffarth in the six-hour 2018 Qualifikationsrennen for the upcoming Nurburgring 24 Hours.

“That was a fantastic fight about the win. We finally were rewarded for our performances and we are more than happy”, said Jäger. “That was a good preparation for the 24h Race mid-May and we are determined to repeat there our performance of today.”

The winning margin was just 2.158, Buurman chased down by the ROWE Racing BMW M6 GT3 of Nicky Catsburg after the final stops, and with two laps to go. Catsburg though, was unable to make a move, and instead settled for a second place finish for himself and teammate Martin Tomczyk.

“What a fight! Nicky Catsburg was so close to us,” Buurman explained. “That was an incredibly hard and exhausting fight. In particular as we got some traffic in the last two laps and then, all of a sudden, Nicky was right behind me, bumper to bumper.

“Finally, I was a bit more lucky in overtaking some cars that were a lap down and secured my position until the finish.”

Prior to that it appeared that the fight for the win would be between the Black Falcon crew and the #912 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R. But the team was handed a penalty for a Code 60 violation and it fell down the order to seventh, leaving the ROWE crew to pick up the challenge.

“That was a fantastic race,” said Catsburg. “I was driving that much as Martin and I had shared two cars for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to get past Yelmer anymore, but I was very close to it.”

Third place meanwhile, went to Edoardo Mortara, Christian Hohenadel, Dominik Baumann and Daniel Juncadella’s HTP Mercedes, after a rollercoaster final lap, which saw their podium secured after Baumann Mande a move on the pole-sitting #8 WRT Audi of Robin Frijns, which eventually came home sixth.

Ahead of the Audi was the factory #7 Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3, and the SP-X class-winning Glickenhaus driven by 2017 N24 pole-sitter Jeff Westphal at the end.

The 2018 running of the Nürburgring 24 Hours is set to take place next month from May 12-13.