Nurburgring 24h finally resumes after 14-hour delay

The German classic was brought to a halt at 9.30pm local time on Saturday after six hours of racing as a thick blanket of fog descended on parts of the Nurburgring Nordschleife.

At both 6am and 7am local time, race organisers concluded that the situation was still too poor to allow racing to resume.

Race director Walter Hornung said: "Unfortunately, it doesn't look so good. Large parts of the Nordschleife are still under fog. Dottinger Hohe and Hohe Acht report zero visibility.

"On the Nordschleife it is slowly getting better, but instead it is drawing in here [on the Grand Prix circuit]."

After a further delay, it was finally decided at 9am to attempt a restart at 10.40am. The pitlane opened at 9.30am, and the warm-up lap was scheduled for 10.20am.

The warm-up lap was subsequently rescheduled multiple times at 20 minute intervals as some fog continues to linger around the Grand Prix layout, but finally started at 11.40am with a little under four hours left on the clock. The finish remains scheduled for 3.30pm.

This means that it is certain that the 49th Nurburgring 24 Hours will be the shortest in the event's history in terms of net driving time and race distance completed.

The longest race interruption to date came in 2013, when racing was suspended for nine hours, 33 minutes during the night due to rain and fog. In 2021, the interruption will end up being at least 14 hours.

Leading the field at the restart was Phillipp Eng in the #1 ROWE Racing BMW M6 GT3 that started the race on pole, followed by the #4 HRT Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Maro Engel and the #20 Schubert Motorsport BMW of Stef Dusseldorp.