Nurburgring 6-Hour – Pepper & Bentley all set for 24-Hour

South African Jordan Pepper and his Abt Bentley Continental GT3 teammates Christian Mamerow and Thorsten Dahm were out of luck as they completed their Nurburgring 24-Hour preparations at the circuit’s 6-Hour pre-race on Sunday, but the team is now fully focussed on the 24-Hour at the legendary 21km racetrack in 4 weeks time.

“Going into the weekend our goal was to automatically qualify for the blue light and top-30 shootout and for the Nurburgring 24-hour race at the end of May,” Jordan explained. “Unfortunately that did not happen.”

“We were looking good in qualifying and ended up second on Saturday, but we were not able to get our last quick lap in the final session Sunday morning and we qualified 13th. “Into the race, we started well but ran into a slight engine power issue early on and eventually when we realised that we were not going to pre-qualify, we decided to retire the car and save it for the big race.”

“I was quite happy with how things went and although we did not qualify in the end, we still have one target and that’s to step onto the podium in the 24-Hour come the end of May, so it’s all eyes on the prize and with the package that we have now and a few fine tweaks we will be up there and fighting.

“Our sister car was very quick on the weekend and there’s the possibility of another Balance of Performance change coming, so let’s see how that works out, but my Bentley is handling beautifully, I am now really enjoying the car and very comfortable with it on the Nordschleife and we are really looking forward to the big one – 24 hours is a long race and anything can happen, Bring it on!”

The Nurburgring 24-Hour happens over the weekend of 27-28 May.