24h-Race Nürburgring - Qualifying

BMW Returns to the Nordschleife

When the 31st 24h-Race Nurburgring starts at 15.00 on Saturday (31st May)
theTeam BMW Motorsport entered M3 GTR number 42, driven by Hans-Joachim Stuck
(GER), Boris Said (USA) and John Nielsen (DNK) will start from 5th on the grid,
while the car driven by Dirk Müller (GER), Jörg Müller (GER) and Claudia
Hürtgen (GER) will start from 7th. Reserve driver for both of these cars will
be Marc Duez (BEL). While Marc is the team's most successful driver at this
event, with four wins to his credit, it was Hans-Joachim who gave BMW its first
win here in 1970.

In the first qualifying session from 10.00 to 12.00 Jörg set the best time of
the day for car no 43 with 9mins 09.13secs, while the best time for car no 42
of 9mins 08.77secs was set by Hans-Joachim in the evening session.The morning
session was held in hot and sunny conditions, but at 17.30 the heavans opened
and a storm of biblical proportions hit the Eifel mountains. The standing water
on the track delayed the start of final qualifying for an hour so the session
was from 20.00 to 23.00.

Albert Biermann, Technical Director of Team BMW Motorsport: We are here for
the first time since our victory in 1998, and are very satisfied with our
qualifying results. For the second qualifying session we fitted the race
engines to the cars so we were not expecting to go a lot faster.

Charly Lamm, Team Manager of Team BMW Motorsport: We had a fantastic day
because we were able to compete with the BMW M3 GTRs again. To be back here at
the Nürburgring competing on the Nordshleife is a great pleasure for all of us
at Team BMW Motorsport. We had a task to complete today in two sessions of
qualifying. We used them to dial in the drivers and the cars and get ourselves
used to long distance racing again. We enjoyed today very much, are happy with
the progress we made and really look forward to the race tomorrow.

Car No 42 - BMW M3 GTR - Hans-Joachim Stuck will start the race

Hans-Joachim Stuck/Boris Said/John Nielsen/Marc Duez

Car No 43 - BMW M3 GTR - Jörg Müller will start the race

Jörg Müller/Dirk Müller/Claudia Hürtgen/Marc Duez

Results: 1. J Alzen/A Klasen/U Alzen/M Bartels (Porsche 996 Turbo) 9m 00.26s,
2. L Luhr/E Collard/T Bernhard (Porsche 996) 9m 02.90s, 3. P Dumbreck/J
Bleekemolen/C Menzel/V Strycek (Opel Astra V8 Coupe) 9m 04.44, 4. P Zakowski/P
Lamy/R Lechner (Dodge Viper) 9m 04.52s, 5. H Stuck/B Said/J Nielsen/M Duez (BMW
M3 GTR) 9m 08.77s, 6. M Reuter/T Scheider/M Tiemann/V Strycek (Opel Astra V8
Coupe) 9m 09.13s, 7. J Müller/D Müller/C Hürtgen/M Duez (BMW M3 GTR) 9m 09.13s,
8. K Wendlinger/C Abt/K Nissen/W Marco (Audi TT-R) 9m10.50s, 9. C Abt/F Biela/M
Ekström/K Wendlinger (Audi TT-R) 9m 11.57s, 10. J Scheid/O Kainz/M Merten (BMW)
9m 21.22s.

The 24 hour race, which is run over the 25.951mile Nordschleife circuit, starts
at 15.00 on Saturday, 31st May.