Take one Kévin Estre, a rain-soaked Nürburgring and a Manthey-Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R. The result? One of the most incredible qualifying laps you will ever see.
Uploaded earlier this week on Manthey’s YouTube channel, the level of car control displayed by Mr. Estre is almost incomprehensible. It makes the GP section of the lap seem fairly tame… right until he joins the Nordschleife.
Keep the volume up on this, and listen to the constant wheel spin in every gear.
If you follow the world of endurance and sports car racing, Kévin’s become a bit of a household name in recent years, and for good reason. Case in point, this 2014 lap in a McLaren 12C GT3 which still remains the fastest SuperPole lap in N24 history.
Then there was the legendary overtake of Maro Engel (using the grass) on the Döttinger Höhe, which Kévin repeated several years later on the Frikadelli-Racing Porsche, both times battling for the lead. Bonkers.
Is it too early to get excited about the N24 Race this year? Absolutely not, it’s only 119 days away. Not that we’re counting…
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And only 34 days until Touristenfahrten resumes on the Nordschleife, although if the weather is anything like the video above I might wait another 34.
Proof that aliens are real. Kévin Estre is from a different galaxy. So much more exciting than F1.
It's really butt-clenching to watch the video, especially when it starts to lose traction and you expect the worse to happen. But nope, Estre's have everything in perfect control. What a driver!
It's funny when you watch this if you don't have experience running in the rain it looks so crazy. Any racer who has some talent has driven in stuff like this and knows it always looks a lot crazier than it is. If the car is setup right and you have experience it's not that bad. Rain is a lot of fun. Comment section will show how many people in this hobby now are couch racers.
A slightly better rule is that talent recognises talent, and doesn't make dismissive comments just to make their peepee feel like the big peepee.
The comment section is mostly people showing respect and admiration for Estre's driving skill. If you've driven just one lap of the Nordschleife, even in dry conditions, you'll know how incredible it is. No lap is ever the same and with nearly 1,000 feet of elevation change over the 15.8-mile lap, it's not just wet conditions, but also the temp change that makes it a wild experience to drive, and also to watch.
Out of interest, how many laps of the Nürburgring have you driven and how often have you raced there?
I've run in the rain at Sonoma with a windshield that I couldn't see out of. The defroster broke and I was looking through a 5" wide port hole through the right hand corners and 90 degrees outside my left side window for the others. Did 4 hours on a track I had never driven before and lost a race by about 20 seconds after a 19 year old F4 driver pitted onto rain tires.
My team mates have driven Can Am, Le Mans in the rain at night at 200mph, and worked with some of the top guys in F1. This is a great video, but within the realm of racing it's not that abnormal. This is very normal in racing. Great car control but very normal guys.
When your credintials include losing a race, knowing some people who have driven at Le Mans, and never driving a lap of the Nürburgring, I can see how you're qualified to talk about couch racing.
Kevin is unreal.
Btw, is Engel, not Engle
Fixed. Good spot, thank you!
The thing I know about Nordschleife, from the 0 times I've physically driven on it, is to know your corners and to cut in early. It's easy to get mixed up and intimidated by the shear numbers of corners, elevation changes and fast straights. Mr. Estre has done his homework. Bravo!
It's a shame they didn't have a passenger seat for the Grim Reaper in there. That was nuts