The world famous German endurance event, the Nürburgring 24 Hours, got underway yesterday with the two official qualifying sessions.

The Maserati factory has entered two official cars as they bid to return the Trident name in style in one of the world's toughest motor races. In the GranSport Trofeo, that is specially bearing Maserati’s original red racing livery, is the ex-Formula 1 driver Jacques Laffite, the veteran sportscar expert Gianni Giudici and two journalists, Patrick Hong from the United States and Richard Meaden from England. Italian Andrea Bertolini, and the German driver Michael Bartels, both of whom drive the MC12 in the FIA GT Championship, Belgian Eric Van de Poele and, once more, Gianni Giudici are share the drive of the second Maserati Reparto Corse entry, the GranSport GT3 'Laboratorio'. This car is featuring Vitaphone sponsors logos during the event.

The GT3 specification 'Laboratorio' entry was immediately among the lead cars in qualifying setting the tenth best time overall of 9 minutes 15.033 seconds out of an entry of more than 200 vehicles. This was an excellent result considering that this particular car is making its competition debut and it features a number of brand new technical innovations that have so far only been tested briefly at the Adria Raceway in Italy. These include a carbon fibre drive shaft.
 

The GranSport Trofeo also fared well with Gianni Giudici qualifying it and coming in seventh (10 minutes 05.033 seconds) in his category and in 67th place overall. This is despite driving a car that is very close to the specification of the original road-going version.

Provisional pole position went to the Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 with contracted Porsche factory drivers' Lucas Luhr, Timo Bernhard, Mike Rockenfeller and Marcel Tiemann on-board. The set the fastest lap in 8 minutes 38.136 seconds, 11 seconds faster than a similar car entered by H&R Spezialfedern which has Uwe Alzen, Klaus Ludwig, Jurgen Altzen and Christian Abt in the cockpit. Aside from the Maserati GranSport GT3 and several Porsche 911 GT3 entries, the top ten features two BMW M3s, two Zakspeed-entered Dodge Vipers and a Lamborghini Gallardo.

Andrea Bertolini: “Very good for a car prepared in a month and with only a day’s testing behind it. I think that the second qualifying session will go even better. The circuit is very uneven but it is exhilarating being here for the 24 Hours”.

Jacques Laffite: “I thought I remembered the track better, however we have to continually pay attention to the other cars. There are more than 200 of us racing; it is amazing. We are doing well”.

The Nürburgring 24 hour race will start this afternoon, Saturday 17 June, at 15.00.