The dust of Le Mans may have only settled a few days ago, but thoughts are already looking ahead to the next round of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The Nurburgring 6 Hours will be the first WEC race held in Germany, meaning that for the first time Audi and Porsche will go head to head on home soil.
Round 4 of the FIA WEC will be the third 6 hour race of the season, after Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps. Although Audi and Porsche will be on home soil, both teams are back down to two car efforts after Le Mans. Lotterer, Fassler and Treluyer will once again be the trio behind the wheel of the #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro with their full season team mates of Oliver Jarvis, Lucas di Grassi and Loic Duval in the #8 car. Porsche will be back with the #17 and #18 Porsche 919 Hybrids of Webber, Hartley and Bernhard and Lieb, Dumas and Jani respectively.
Also in LMP1 Rebellion and Nissan will be making their 6 hour race debut at the Nurburgring in late August. Nissan have confirmed that Max Chilton will be joined by Harry Tincknell in the #22 GTR-LM NISMO, while the #23 car will be piloted by Olivier Pla and Jann Mardenborough.
Nick Tandy will be back in the Le Mans winning LMP2 car at KCMG alongside full season team mates Richard Bradley and Matthew Howson fresh from his Le Mans success with Porsche in LMP1. Tandy is now Lotterer, Fassler and Treluyer’s nearest competitor in the overall Drivers’ World Championship standings courtesy of his 50 points earned on Sunday at Le Mans.
The home fans will have plenty to cheer for with a total of eight German cars competing in the race across LMP1, GTE-PRO and AM. Aswell as 8 German cars, there will be a total of ten German drivers competing in the race across the same three classes.
GTE-PRO will see two German cars fielded by Porsche Team Manthey in the form of two 911 RSRs. The only German driver in the class will be Stefan Mucke in the #97 Aston Martin V8 Vantage alongside Britain’s Darren Turner. at the top of the championship Ferrari have a healthy lead in the constructors championship, however Bruni and Vilander’s lead in the drivers’ standings is down to just four points with Calado and Rigon closing the gap after a strong Le Mans outing.
Roalde Goethe is hoping to be lining up on his home grid at the end of August although his hopes rely on his recovery after his crash at the Ford Chicane while leading the GTE-AM class with 45 minutes to go at Le Mans.
The full entry list can be found here. Commentary of the race will be broadcast as ever live on RadioLeMans.com and in vision in the UK on Motors TV. Coverage of the race will also be found here on WEC-Magazin.com and in German at WEC-Magazin.de
Images – James Clarke (WEC-Magazin.com)