No. 85 BMW team finds silver lining in Nürburgring 24 Hours

However, as is the case with any endurance race - especially so this grueling classic in the “Green Hell” - it also takes some good luck to just make it to the end, let alone have a shot at a good result.

Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on the No. 85 BMW team’s side in the end, even though things got off to a very promising start.

Pascal Theis qualified the No. 85 BMW M4 GT3 in 13th place on the grid with a quick lap of 8:11.623, which was only off by about four seconds compared to the pole setter.

Theis would also be the starting driver for the team. Things got dicey quickly in turn two, as three cars banged doors directly in front of Theis, battling for position.

“I got a little bit nervous and slowed. I was telling myself ‘Okay, I really have to trust the guy behind me is paying attention and slows down as well.’”, the 27-year-old commented.

“Fortunately for us, they did, and we got away from that scare. It’s just, you never know what is going to happen at the start. It was quite close.”

Another incident on lap three foreshadowed that this race would be a challenge for the team to get through unscathed. When the No. 472 BMW of Next Level SimRacing lost control directly in front of Theis, leading into the entry corner of the Nordschleife, Theis hit the other car, taking immediate evasive action.

Though there was no visible damage to the car, the start had Theis and the No. 85 BMW team on alert, that this may be a race even more challenging than originally thought.

© 2021 Fischer Motorsport Lap 6: Pascal Theis narrowly avoids the spun No. 2 BMW of LEO Racing Team in turn one

Just three laps later, the Frankfurt, Germany native found himself in trouble once again, when another GT3 car spun in turn one. Theis came to a complete stop to avoid damage, but only ever so closely.

On lap seven, Theis completed his opening stint, and the team made its first scheduled driver swap as Florian Volk took over the cockpit of the No. 85 BMW M4 GT3.

For Volk, this was the first-time he participated in the iRacing Nürburgring 24 Hours. The Grebenhain, Germany native left pit road in ninth position and was now looking to complete his double stint.

Proving his tremendous talent and invaluable GT3 experience after competing in the IVRA GT Sprint Series last year with Mayer Simspeed Performance, Volk managed to put the team into fourth position by the time he targeted pit road at the end of his double stint on lap 21.

“I’m quite happy with how my double stint went.”, Volk said after exiting the car.

“The track is not as fast just yet, but the car feels very, very good, I have to say. We’ve got a very good balance. A lot of teams have made mistakes or crashed and have fallen back. So I’m very glad that we were able to stay clear of trouble overall.”

As the race entered its fourth hour, Pascal Theis climbed behind the steering wheel of the car, aiming to complete his first double stint of the day.

The full-service pit stop dropped the No. 85 team back to P6, one position behind its sister car, the No. 84 BMW with Tobias Abel behind the wheel.

It was at that time, that Theis put started the fireworks and took full advantage of the track, that had started to clear in front of him, after struggling with busy traffic during the first hour of the race earlier.

Posting one fastest lap after another, Theis chased down and passed team-mate Abel for fourth position on lap 23 and after that continued to pull away, getting closer and closer to the top-three.

On lap 34 Theis set the fastest lap time of the race for the No. 85 BMW team, by posting a lap time of 8:13.737. Just a lap later, the third-year team veteran driver traveled down pit lane, completing his double stint in second place.

The team looked on pace to be a serious contender for the win early on. The sun started to set over the mountains of the Eifel region and Frenchman Y. Hignet made his first appearance in the race now.

Hignet, who made his endurance racing debut with Fischer Motorsport in the 2020 iRacing Petit Le Mans, had shown some of the quickest pace of the entire team during practice sessions and entered the Nürburgring 24 Hours highly motivated.

By the end of Hignet’s stint, darkness had set over the track and the most challenging time of the race began, as teams and drivers had to battle the night in the “Green Hell”.

On lap 48, Hignet eventually came down pit road and the No. 85 BMW team was looking to make its next driver change, with Jason Birnie scheduled to take over from the Frenchman.

During the pit stop, the team suddenly experienced massive problems with the fuel pump. No fuel was going into the car as the pit crew scrambled, desperately trying to fix the problem.

It took the team four minutes to complete the pit stop and get the car fueled up, before Birnie finally exited pit lane to get back on the racetrack. The No. 85 BMW team had now fallen from second to tenth position with a gap of over five minutes to the leaders, but there was still a long race to go.

On lap 58 Birnie completed his first stint and had driven the car back to seventh position. The Californian showed tremendous consistency and very good pace in his first Nürburgring 24 Hours start ever.

© 2021 Fischer Motorsport The 2021 iRacing Nürburgring 24 Hours came to an end for Yannick Hignet and the No. 85 BMW team when a mechanical failure on the car resulted in a crash at Kesselchen

By the end of his double stint, the No. 85 BMW team had clawed its way back to sixth place.

“We never gave up. We knew it was going to be a fight to come back from that fuel mishap. But there have been a lot of teams with issues in the race. So we knew it wasn’t impossible to get back into the top-five and maybe get a good finish, still.”, Y. Hignet said.

However, as mentioned before, lady luck was not with the team in this night. At two o’clock at night, during Hignet’s second stint on another double stint, a mechanical failure on the No. 85 BMW M4 GT3 at the track section of Kesselchen sent the Frenchman hard into the barriers.

The car was heavily damaged in the accident and bounced back across the track to impact a second time on the opposite side of the track.

While Hignet was able to exit the car unharmed, the car was damaged so badly, that the team was forced to retire from the race.

“We don’t know yet what happened with the car. We won’t know until after the race when we get the car back. But Y. said on the radio that the impact was pretty hard and we’re definitely out of the race. It is unfortunate, but that is how it goes sometimes.”, Jason Birnie said.

As the team packed up its equipment and closed up shop for the race, disappointment was visibly present among all team members and drivers. However, the team found a silver lining in a very strong performance in the opening six hours of the race, when it was competitive in the fight for a top finish in the race.

“We’ll come back next year and try again. Hopefully we’ll have better luck then.”, Florian Volk said.