Herberth Motorsport seals fourth event victory at the 25th 24H Barcelona

Having swapped the lead repeatedly with the Saintéloc Junior Team throughout the night, the Herberth Motorsport Porsche 992 GT3 R (#91, Scott Noble / Ralf Bohn / Jason Hart / Dustin Blattner) managed to extend its advantage to just over two laps heading into Sunday morning. A couple of on-track clashes aside, the newly-crowned GT3 Teams’ and GT3-AM Teams’ champion ran faultlessly en-route to the chequered flag, extending the event’s ‘GT era’ distance record (2011 to present) from 725 laps to 738 laps of the 4.657km Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Ralf Bohn, already an event victor in 2016, 2018 and 2021, becomes only the second driver to win the Hankook 24H BARCELONA four times overall, drawing him level with ’02, ’03, ’04 and ‘09 event winner, Oscar Nogués.

Celebrating this accomplishment with radiolemans.com’s Joe Bradley, Ralf Bohn praised former teammate Daniel Allemann, with whom he secured three of those four wins.

“Winning is always a nice thing! Congrats to my teammates who I’ve won the race with before– hi Daniel! – and I’m very happy.

“We had a very strong season, we didn’t make many mistakes, and we had a very good car, as usual from the Herberth team. I’d like to say thank you very much to everyone involved preparing the car. Together with a strong [driver] line-up, this has been the basis for success.”

With this victory, Herberth Motorsport also draws to a close a decade-long partnership between Hankook Tires and the 24H SERIES, one that began at the Hankook 12H ZANDVOORT in 2014. CREVENTIC would like to sincerely thank Hankook Tires for its support down the years.

After a typically impeccable performance, the Saintéloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II (#18, Michael Doppelmayr / Pierre Kaffer / Elia Erhart / Stephane Tribaudini / Christer Jöns) came home 2nd overall to secure its second consecutive class win of 2024 and the GT3-PRO/AM Teams’ title.

The Poulsen Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 (#14, Kristian Poulsen / Roland Poulsen / Alfred Nilsson / Jens Klingmann) eventually emerged on top in a close fight with the Red Camel by Juta Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II (#9, Ivo Breukers / Luc Breukers / Rik Breukers / Fabian Danz) for 3rd overall. This marks Poulsen Motorsport’s first overall podium since its return to the 24H SERIES in 2022.

2017 Overall GT Teams’ ‘Europe’ champion Hofor Racing (#11, Michael Kroll / Chantal Prinz / Alexander Prinz / Maximilian Partl / Kenneth Heyer) completed a remarkable fightback to finish 5th overall and 2nd in GT3-AM at Barcelona. Suspension failure ended up dropping the Mercedes-AMG GT3 out of the top 30 completely just 60 minutes into the 24-hour event.

The pole-sitting Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 EVO (#4, Todd Coleman / Aaron Telitz / Robert Megennis / Frederik Schandorf) had headed the field by more than 50 seconds during the opening stint, and was still well in the hunt for overall victory at half-distance. Regrettably, the British team lost close to 20 minutes in the pits during the night when the McLaren’s throttle pedal went to the floor. This dropped Optimum Motorsport into the fight for 3rd, from which it would be eliminated, less than 45 minutes from home, with fuel pressure problems. The McLaren was eventually classified 7th.

Despite a late-race collision with the GSR Motorsport Ginetta and an earlier trip into the gravel at turn five, the Juta Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II (#71, Arunas Geciauskas / Eimantas Navikauskas / Sigitas Ambrazevicius / Martin Ryba / Francois Beziac) ended a bruising race 9th overall and on the final step of the GT3-AM podium.

Like Hofor Racing, Land Motorsport (#34, Dr. Johannes Kirchhoff, Ingo Vogler / Tim Vogler / Wiggo Dalmo / Elmar Grimm) was forced to battle back from early mechanical problems – on this occasion, a torn alternator belt – to finish 11th. Just 25 minutes in, the Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II had fallen to the tail of the field.

Spain’s E2P Racing (#90, Pablo Burguera / Antonio Sainero / Alvaro Parente / Javier Morcillo) was sadly forced to retire from a potential top five finish when the Porsche 991.2 GT3 R suffered power steering issues during the night.