Benecke, Verstappen, Lulham Dominate 2021 iRacing Nurburgring 24HR Powered By VCO
When all was said and done after two trips around the clock on the legendary Nordschleife, one team stood head and shoulders above the rest in iRacing’s 2021 edition of the Nurburgring 24H Powered By VCO. The BMW Team Redline trio of Maximilian Benecke, Chris Lulham, and last weekend’s Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen led 158 of 174 laps from the pole to dominate the annual staple of iRacing’s special events calendar, taking over for good with more than two hours remaining in the grueling event.
Only two other GT3 cars finished on the lead lap, with BMW M4 GT3s sweeping the podium. The trio of Kay Kaschube, Laurin Heinrich, and Rainer Talvar gave Team BMW Bank a second place overall finish, while BMW Team GB’s Sami-Matti Trogen, Dominik Staib, Adustin Canapino, and Alex Arana took third place.
In the GT3 Cup class, R8G Esports’ Junior team took top honors with drivers Julien Soenen, Quentiin Vialatte, and Thibault Cazaubon, coming in a full lap ahead of H2-Performance SRT and two laps ahead of AVA Confused Zecarul. Top GT4 honors went to the Team RSO by Team Heuskinveld quartet of Nils Carstensen, Nils Lorenz, Lennart Hartenberg, and Manuel Waibel, who also won their class by a lap over SimRC and GermanSimRacing.de by ACV.
That left the Touring class as the only other division with its top two finishers on the same lap. Team Heuskinveld’s Michael Schoettler, Patrick Kubinji, Marcel Tie, and Fabian Siegmann beat Frozenspeed Full Send’s Steen Ledger, Ethan Grigg-Gault, Lars Bol, and Oli Peacock to the finish, with RevolutionSimRacing Yellow finishing off the podium in the battle of Audi RS 3 LMS entries.
This year’s iRacing Nurburgring 24HR Powered By VCO featured four time slots, with an impressive 34 splits as four different classes took to the track. Thousands of combined entries continued the momentum of a huge year for iRacing special events, with the premier GT3 division making for the vehicle of choice.
Full results from the top split of the 2021 iRacing Nurburgring 24HR Powered By VCO were as follows:
Fin. |
St. |
No. |
Team |
Car |
Class |
Laps |
Interval |
Led |
Best |
| 1 | 1 | 71 | BMW Team Redline | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 174 | 158 | 8:04.284 | |
| 2 | 8 | 7 | Team BMW Bank | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 174 | -3:19.585 | 10 | 8:05.042 |
| 3 | 3 | 55 | BMW Team GB | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 174 | -4:11.903 | 2 | 8:05.013 |
| 4 | 7 | 2 | MAHLE RACING TEAM | Mercedes AMG GT3 | GT3 | 173 | -1 L | 0 | 8:06.226 |
| 5 | 4 | 1 | URANO eSports HEINEKINGMEDIA | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 173 | -1 L | 3 | 8:05.456 |
| 6 | 11 | 97 | Team RSO #97 by Team Heusinkveld | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 173 | -1 L | 0 | 8:07.301 |
| 7 | 15 | 23 | R8G Esports Junior 2 | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 168 | -6 L | 0 | 8:26.482 |
| 8 | 25 | 22 | H2-Performance SRT | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 167 | -7 L | 0 | 8:27.283 |
| 9 | 26 | 41 | AVA Confused Zecarul | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 166 | -8 L | 0 | 8:28.833 |
| 10 | 19 | 215 | Impulse Racing #215 | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 164 | -10 L | 0 | 8:26.322 |
| 11 | 24 | 91 | Fuga SimSport GT | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 163 | -11 L | 0 | 8:28.819 |
| 12 | 20 | 18 | Dutch Mountains Racing – Toucan | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 162 | -12 L | 0 | 8:28.408 |
| 13 | 34 | 397 | Team RSO #397 by Team Heusinkveld | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 162 | -12 L | 0 | 8:45.628 |
| 14 | 32 | 76 | SimRC $76 | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 161 | -13 L | 0 | 8:45.887 |
| 15 | 35 | 67 | GermanSimRacing.de by ACV | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 161 | -13 L | 0 | 8:45.326 |
| 16 | 22 | 160 | Schaller Sim Racing Cup | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 161 | -13 L | 0 | 8:28.936 |
| 17 | 38 | 19 | Redface Racing GT4 by JRT | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 160 | -14 L | 0 | 8:47.492 |
| 18 | 30 | 6 | Team Fordzilla | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 160 | -14 L | 0 | 8:45.972 |
| 19 | 36 | 8 | DRS Wave Italy GT4 | BMW M4 GT4 | GT4 | 159 | -15 L | 0 | 8:46.495 |
| 20 | 40 | 263 | Mario Kart Motorsports | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 159 | -15 L | 0 | 8:48.477 |
| 21 | 42 | 404 | Team Heusinkveld #404 | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 156 | -18 L | 0 | 9:07.080 |
| 22 | 45 | 85 | Frozenspeed Full Send | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 156 | -18 L | 0 | 9:07.962 |
| 23 | 46 | 182 | RevolutionSimRacing Yellow | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 155 | -19 L | 0 | 9:08.704 |
| 24 | 39 | 11 | United Sim Sport GT4 #15 | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 155 | -19 L | 0 | 8:46.216 |
| 25 | 49 | 222 | Impulse Racing #222 | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 155 | -19 L | 0 | 9:10.145 |
| 26 | 51 | 34 | Fiercely Forward | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 155 | -19 L | 0 | 9:08.811 |
| 27 | 52 | 10 | Race Clutch TCR | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 154 | -20 L | 0 | 9:09.577 |
| 28 | 50 | 312 | Sergi Maturana/Davíd Peña | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 154 | -20 L | 0 | 9:09.814 |
| 29 | 48 | 17 | Frozenspeed FSRxMADxT3 | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 154 | -20 L | 0 | 9:09.041 |
| 30 | 41 | 114 | Glowing Disc Motorsport RED | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 152 | -22 L | 0 | 8:51.332 |
| 31 | 9 | 43 | Logitech G Altus Esports | Audi R8 LMS | GT3 | 150 | -24 L | 0 | 8:06.874 |
| 32 | 54 | 200 | Alpinestars Geodesic Racing Gold | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 150 | -24 L | 0 | 9:12.052 |
| 33 | 53 | 26 | Ignium Motorsport | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 150 | -24 L | 0 | 9:10.158 |
| 34 | 47 | 12 | DNA | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 120 | -54 L | 0 | 9:08.893 |
| 35 | 5 | 89 | BS COMPETITION | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 97 | -77 L | 0 | 8:06.594 |
| 36 | 43 | 117 | Puresims and Friends | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 82 | -92 L | 0 | 9:08.884 |
| 37 | 17 | 227 | Ascher Racing | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 66 | -108 L | 0 | 8:26.372 |
| 38 | 28 | 15 | CoRe SimRacing | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 39 | -135 L | 0 | 8:44.460 |
| 39 | 29 | 13 | RevolutionSimRacing Orange | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 33 | -141 L | 0 | 8:44.860 |
| 40 | 10 | 450 | Biela Racing Team EURONICS | Audi R8 LMS | GT3 | 32 | -142 L | 0 | 8:07.325 |
| 41 | 23 | 20 | Arvensis Racing | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 21 | -153 L | 0 | 8:29.946 |
| 42 | 31 | 72 | Mivano Simracing Everyeye.it | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 43 | 2 | 4 | R8G esports Junior 1 | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 0 | -174 L | 1 | |
| 44 | 16 | 116 | Puresims Esports | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 45 | 13 | 9 | Williams Esports Academy | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 46 | 6 | 3 | URANO eSports HP | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 47 | 21 | 888 | TREQ eSports | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 48 | 33 | 16 | AXA SimSport $148 | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 49 | 27 | 27 | Texense FitzSty Ares | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 50 | 44 | 159 | HM Engineering TCR #159 | Audi RS 3 LMS | Touring | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 51 | 12 | 5 | Douradinhos racing | BMW M4 GT3 – Prototype | GT3 | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 52 | 18 | 14 | MB Racing Esport Nordic | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 53 | 14 | 911 | Porsche24 driven by Redline | Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (991) | GT3 Cup | 0 | -174 L | 0 | |
| 54 | 37 | 99 | n’RACE esports | Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport | GT4 | 0 | -174 L | 0 |
The iRacing special events calendar continues with five events in May, led by Sunday’s BMW Sim GT Cup at Road Atlanta. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.
Image via VCO
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