Endurance racing in motorsport is almost as old as the car itself. Undisputedly, the most famous of all the endurance events is the annual Le Mans 24-hour race. But less than a week after the chequered flag dropped in France, we're in Germany to hear the engines roar once again, this time for the start of the 2014 Nürburgring 24 Hours.
To be clear: these aren’t actually the same engines or even the same cars, as the field looks rather different – and rather larger, too. At Le Mans, some 54 cars lined up at the start, whereas a mind-boggling 200 or so competitors take to the track at the Nürburgring. That’s only possible because of the length of a lap. La Sarthe circuit in France is long by any measure, at about 13.6 kilometres, but it’s dwarfed by the 25km lap in Germany, which takes in both the “new” Grand Prix circuit and the notorious Nordschleife (North Loop in English – also referred to as the Green Hell). Because of the length, few sections of the track ever feel crowded from a spectator’s point of view. And that’s despite the fact that somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 fans turn up every year – a figure that’s on a par with Le Mans.
While a love of racing is shared between all motorsport fans, there’s a distinctly different feel to the camp sites at the Nürburgring. The vast majority of spectators’ cars are from Germany for a start, whereas Le Mans is inundated with other nationalities – especially Britons. And while you’re as likely to trip over a rare and expensive Ferrari or Aston Martin in a dusty car park in France, the German fields aren’t so full of exotic machinery, the locals instead favouring plenty of older Volkswagens and BMWs with a few tuning tweaks or clapped-out camper vans with custom paint jobs. The focus instead is on the racing and the structures built to get a decent vantage point of it. We’re told that the most committed fans have been on site for the best part of a week, which explains the level of work gone into some of the viewing platforms that we witness. They also double up as indoor discos, as we discover at about 3am. Campfires and makeshift barbecues are omnipresent, no matter what time of day. We see whole families camped out watching the racing, toddlers and teenagers in tow. Sleep is optional, as the fans undertake their own endurance trial.
This rough-and-ready approach isn’t unheard of at Le Mans, but it’s the norm here, where the glamorous-hospitality end of the business is less prevalent. This perhaps reflects the on-track action. At the Nürburgring, the fastest class is GT3, and there’s a healthy grid of recognisable sports cars, including two McLaren 12Cs, a couple of Nissan GT-Rs, several Audi R8s, BMW Z4s, Mercedes-Benz SLS AMGs and Porsche 911s, plus a single Aston Martin V12 Vantage. With their huge rear wings and bulging wheel arches, they look sensational, and they sound nothing short of brutal. Each racer emits its own distinctive wail, from the truck-like Nissans to the deep-chested SLS AMGs and the most melodious of them all, the Aston Martin.
But while the GT3 cars set the pace, they have to negotiate the rest of the field, which may come as a surprise to the uninitiated. There are plenty of very-serious-looking racers farther down the running (including the V10-engined Lexus LFAs), but they’re wonderfully interspersed with all kinds of random cars. There’s an old Opel Manta for a start, which wouldn’t have looked out of place on a rally stage more than 30 years ago, plus several ancient Volkswagen Golfs and even what looks like a bog-standard Mercedes-Benz C-Class. The word “eclectic” doesn’t begin to cover the spectacle. And what a spectacle it is, seeing the pro drivers of the likes of that McLaren homing in on a gaggle of relatively normal cars duelling for position. The GT3 cars have an automatic light-flashing system to warn those ahead that they’re coming through, and the marshals are kept rather busy with the blue flags, but even so, the leading cars are regularly baulked and they give little quarter, coming close to pushing the other slower cars out of the way. This defines the race – few vehicles that make it to the end do so with all paint intact. Lap after lap, a car limps into the pits trailing bits of bodywork and leaking fluids all over the place.
We take our spots above the start-finish straight just in time for the off, having spent the past five hours scything through the German countryside in a road-going example of one of the racers on track – the new Aston Martin V8 Vantage N430. The “N” stands for Nürburgring – and it’s named after this circuit for good reason, as Aston has a lot of history here. Most European carmakers use the Nordschleife to develop their road cars to some degree, but Aston Martin has carved out a closer relationship than most with the place over the past few years, thanks mainly to its involvement with the 24-hour race. That and the fact it has a permanent test centre just a few kilometres away from the track.
In fairness, the N430 is mostly a cosmetic exercise, but it turns out to be a welcome reminder of how great the V8 Vantage still is. The two-tone finish is an unashamed nod to the Aston race cars – buyers can choose from five colour schemes. The contrasting hue is applied to the nose, door-mirror casings, rear diffuser and the roof rails that lead into the windscreen pillars. The iconic green-and-yellow option isn’t for the shy, retiring type, but it suits our destination well. Complementing the paintwork is a dark theme for other detailing, plus gorgeous graphite-painted forged alloy wheels. Those are lightweight items, too, removing overall mass and unsprung weight for the suspension to deal with.
The N430 features the V8 Vantage S’s sports suspension, without adaptive damping. It’s very well judged, endowing the Vantage with incredible individual wheel control, even over some seriously bumpy German back roads. The tyres rarely lose contact with the road, and when they do it’s only for a split second and it doesn’t upset the car’s composure or put it off line. This unrelenting stability is one of the defining characteristics of this model’s chassis. Yet despite how easy it is to drive this car quickly, it makes the driver feel part of the action. The quick steering is assisted by a hydraulic pump rather than the latest generation of electric motor systems, which is a great help, and there’s clear information to the driver telling him how much grip is left underneath.
On dry roads, there’s a huge amount of traction and it takes a lot of provocation to overstep the limits. Try to push through a corner too early and the nose will wash wide gradually, though avoid that with less speed and the reward is a more neutral cornering stance through the middle of the bend – and controllable oversteer as you accelerate away. So good is the traction that there’s little to fear in turning the stability-control system off fully in the dry, though Aston Martin provides a midway setting that allows some slip before intervening. That’s the most sensible mode for road use. Through all this the big brakes impress with perfect pedal feel and unflappable stopping power.
The big-chested V8 engine under the bonnet is a wonderful thing. It’s getting on now, especially in a world gone mad for superchargers and turbocharging, but that makes it even more compelling. There’s something very satisfying about the long pedal travel and the seemingly endless sweep of the needle around to the red line of the rev counter. All this is accompanied by a sonorous bellow from the exhaust outlets, which is reason enough to buy this car. In isolation, it feels fast, though clearly there are newer cars that could set quicker lap times. While the N430 is rapid by any measure, it’s not just about that; this is a special car that engages its driver and makes them feel part of the process. It’s impossible not to be charmed by its personality.
And that’s probably why Aston Martin goes racing: to prove how durable its cars are. While our N430 is ticking and cooling in the car park, on-track, the V12 Vantage manages a creditable fifth place overall. Not only that; all of Aston’s racers that started on track 24 hours earlier finish, including a close-to-production V12 Vantage and two V8 Vantage N430s. Most of the Aston Martin staff gather above the pits to witness the end of the race, and their elation couldn’t be more obvious if their car and drivers had taken the top step. That sums up the feel of endurance racing. It’s an epic 24 hours for cars, drivers and spectators alike, and though the Nürburgring race sits in the shadow of Le Mans, it’s no less a feat to compete and finish. It’s enough to make us want to jump straight back into the N430 and hit the road.
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