24-hour race without a happy ending

Christian Engelhart narrowly missed out on a podium finish in the world-famous 24-hour classic at the Nürburgring. The driver from Starnberg, who competed with ABT Sportsline in the 2025 edition of the ADAC Ravenol 24-hour race, was in third place together with his teammates until half an hour before the finish - then a technical defect with a repair stop shortly before the end threw the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 back to fifth position.

Nevertheless, Christian and his two team-mates Luca Engstler and Marco Mapelli were able to impress in the 24-hour sprint race. The Lamborghini works drivers not only set strong lap times, but also demonstrated consistency and a good overview. As a result, they were always able to avoid contact with rival vehicles during the numerous lappings and kept out of any scuffles. An important result of this: The #28 did not receive any time penalties over the entire race. An important piece in the mosaic of success in such a demanding endurance race. All the more annoying is the technical defect shortly before the end of the race.

"Once again, this is motorsport at its toughest. We all put in a very strong weekend together at the Nürburgring. I would like to thank my team-mates and the entire ABT Sportsline team for that. The fact that it turned out like this for us in the end shows that not only does everything have to come together, but you also have to have the necessary luck. Unfortunately, we lacked the latter."Nevertheless, Christian was able to gather many positive impressions and experiences in his first collaboration with the traditional Allgäu racing team. Once again, there were also a few curiosities at the race in the Eifel: in order to avoid the notorious fog in the Eifel, which caused the race to be stopped after just seven hours last year, the race started unusually late in the year.

With not a single cloud and temperatures of over 30 degrees, the event turned into a real heat battle - unusual conditions for a race with 280,000 spectators this year.There were no interruptions either: a power failure throughout the paddock caused a break of almost two and a half hours on Saturday evening."Looking back a little, it was a gigantic weekend. Not only the record number of spectators speaks for itself, but also the entire course of events, the race with really intense racing at the highest GT level in the world, as well as the entire supporting program, which started in the middle of the week. The fact that I was able to take part as a driver was definitely a highlight in 2025, so I would like to thank all my partners all the more for their support."