May 13-16, TOYO TIRES participated in the 38th ADAC Zurich 24h race (24h. Nürburgring Race) held in Nürburgring, Germany as #46 Lammertink Racing with TOYO TIRES with the three drivers; Tom Coronel, Duncan Huisman and Yasushi Kikuchi (Yasu), driving in a Porsche GT3 Cup from the Lammertink Racing; our tire developing partner.

A four-day racing week started on 13th with the 90-min practice in noon followed by the 1st 4-hour qualifying at night on the same day. The 2nd qualifying was held in noon of 14th, finally the 24-hour race launched at 15:00 on 15th with 200 machines participated and more than 200,000 spectators on the race day. The lineup of entrants was the most gorgeous in the recent years with a hot Porsche Hybrid car from Manthey Porsche; currently the 4th consecutive Nürburgring 24-hour winner, Audi's eight R8s including ABT and BMW Works' two M3s and two LFAs from Lexus same as last year for competitive entrants and with other Subaru Impreza, VW Scirocco and etc.

May 13, 13:00-14:30 - Practice session under light rain with a temperature of 8 deg.C and surface temperature of 8 deg.C.
In the first day, Tom used rain tires under depressing rain and foggy weather conditions. During the session, Tom changed to intermediate tires for a little wet condition and kept the practice, however, he had to stop it due to drivetrain problems just after 14:00.

19:30-22:30 - First qualifying session under light rain with a temperature of 7 deg.C and surface temperature of 7 deg.C.
Although the drivetrain was repaired, fuel system problems occurred this time. The machine went back to the session at 20:10, however, the team feeling anxious about having trouble again knowing that all drivers must be measured for 2 laps each in this night session. The measurements were performed with wet tires in the order of Yasu, Duncan and Tom for two laps each. Although the remaining time was reserved for Tom's trial, it was carried over for tomorrow because the rain had become heavier and the minimum lap requirements have been already met. The position was 70th.

May 14 12:45-14:45 - Second qualifying session with a temperature of 12 deg.C and surface temperature of 12 deg.C.
It started under a miserable weather but cleared towards afternoon. The team fixed the problems and started the session with slick tires. They planned to make laps as 2 laps for Tom, 3 laps for Duncan, 3 laps for Yasu, and then 2 laps for Tom, however, a competitor hit the rear tire on the second lap forcing a pit stop. Even though the alignment was not perfect, the team only changed the right rear tire with bended rim and then went back in the track. After Duncan and Yasu had their time trials, Tom marked 9:07 on his first lap. Unfortunately, not long after that, Tom had the fuel system problems again due to a light contact with a competitor, so he had to end the trial with the qualifying results of 30th in the overall and 4th in the SP7 class.

May 15, 15：00-16, 15：00 - Race with a temperature of 15 deg.C and surface temperature of 17 deg.C.
A foggy morning make us worried of this changeable Nürburgring weather but it ended up with a nice and dry condition. Tom started the 24-hour race from the 15th row of the grid. He was driving around 35th in the beginning of the race but he made a pit stop on the 5th lap, which was 3 laps earlier than expected. It was not a significant problem so the machine returned to the track after having tire change and refueling only. When two hours passed from the start, Tom came back to the pit as planned at the end of 12th lap. They had refueling and another tire change, and also the driver was replaced to Duncan. He kept making laps with around 9:40 per lap. It was 35th in the overall position and 6th in the class when Duncan was replaced to Yasu at 18:00. The drivers commented on the tires that there were no problems at all, so we hoped to pick up some more pace later on. The overall order from the top at this moment was #1 Manthey Porsche, #100 Team ABT's AudiR8, #8 Manthey Porsche, #2 Team ABT's AudiR8 again followed by #9 Manthey Porsche hybrid.

On the 22nd lap, Yasu suddenly made a pit stop for a transmission trouble. The team started the replacement at 18:55 and went back in the track right after finishing the replacement at 20:05, however, the machine soon returned to the pit again. The transmission was not completely recovered. Since there was no spare transmission, the team made a hard decision to end this 24-hour race at 22:30.

The overall winner was #25 BMW M3 GT2 (BMW Motor Sports) driven by Jörg Müller, Augusto Farfus, Uwe Alzen and Pedro Lamy, started from the 8th and kept its own pace until the end. They stopped the #1 Manthey Porsche's fifth straight winning achievement. When the remaining race time was less than 2 hours, the leading #9 Porsche 911 GT3R hybrid suddenly stopped, so #25 M3 came to the top and kept driving to finish without major problems. 123 machines managed to complete the whole race out of 197 participated machines, which gives the completion rate of approximately 60% for this race with many accidents and machine troubles.

The next race will be VLN held in the full course of the same Nürburgring in September.
Hopefully there will be good results to report to you.