Spoiler:
The crazy Nurburging 24 was on this weekend as well where they race 200 odd cars across some 20 or so classes (ranging from the likes of Audi R8's down to Renault Clios and even a classic Opel Manta) on both the F1 and original Nordschleife for 24 hours. A customer Audi team managed a tremendous job leading for 22.5 hours which in such tough conditions is impressive but as the car left the pits it struggled for power and then died on the F1 circuit, it limped back to the pits and after being hooked up to the computer they got it going. Their two minute lead was long gone and they were in third chasing a deficit of several minutes. As the lead cars completed their final splash and dash the Audi hit further bad luck as they made a mistake when fuelling and the car pulled away before it was ready, forcing them to stop it and push it back into its spot losing further time.
There had been lots of footage of the customer Audi's pit team who were all despairing while the factory Audi team couldn't believe they'd been gifted the win. However as they were getting the car back to it stop and checking the fuel cap with only 18 minutes of the 24 hours left, the rain started really chucking it down so they swapped the car onto wets and set it on its way. The risk with the Ring is that with the huge size some parts can be bone dry and some soaking wet as it was in this case but the wet tyre shod Audi rocketed along the track while the rest of the field including the two lead cars were creeping along and both skidded off the track. It looked like the customer Audi was going to crash as it tried to weave through all the slow cars, it even did an overtake on the grass to get by and then easily took its lead back however it then went onto the bone dry section of the track which could be enough to destroy the tread blocks, all was ok though and it safely made it back to the wet track and came back round for the win. Meanwhile the former lead Audi and BMW both pitted to go onto wets for the last lap but then both had the same thought that they might be able to do a fast enough lap on slicks so both immediately left the pits without refuelling or tyres.
The rain stopped shortly after but really quite an incredible finish to the race.
John