Class podiums for four Giti Motorsport teams at Nürburgring 24-Hour

All four Giti Tire Motorsport cars achieved top three finishes in their classes at the Nürburgring 24-Hour. Terrible overnight weather at the Eifel circuit saw the race suspended for nine hours, and only 70 of the 97-car grid make it to the finish.

Giti said that tyre management proved decisive in helping teams overcome challenging conditions. The Giti Tire Motorsport by WS Racing Audi R8 LMS GT4 finished first in the SP8 class, while the Volkswagen Golf VII GTI Clubsport came in third in the VT2 class. In the SP3T class the trailblazing #gitiracing all-female racing team finished third in their Volkswagen Golf VII GTI TCR, overcoming a race crash and garage repairs to finish.

With an entire female team inside and outside the cockpit, Giti Tire Motorsport by WS Racing made history last year as the first all-women crew to compete in the Nürburgring 24-Hour. The team built its following as it overcame 14 hours of engine repairs to cross the finish line. Only a handful of spectators were allowed into the circuit in 2020, so Giti prepared a month-long global communication schedule that included a full history of the team, interviews with drivers and engineers, virtual meet-and-greet sessions and the race itself with behind-the-scenes coverage and race footage. External PR was further boosted with the manufacturer’s race partnership with motorsport.com and a German TV production company took hours of footage for a forthcoming documentary, Girls Only.

The #gitiracing social media activity also closely followed the challenges the tyre crew and technologies addressed to meet the intense demands of high-powered endurance racing, and how these learnings are taken ‘From the racetrack to the street’, as highlighted on the website. All cars in the competition run on GitiCompete GTR1 tyres which form part of a comprehensive range of competition racing tyres which are used in events around the world. The proven technology findings are adapted to further develop its everyday passenger car portfolios, Giti adds.

Nürburgring data ‘extremely interesting’

Giti’s all-female racing team competes in its Volkswagen Golf VII GTI TCR (Photo: Giti)

Stefan Fischer, managing director – product technology at Giti Tire Europe, explained the importance of the endurance race: “Before the race we said this would be a Nürburgring 24-Hour like no other, and with some of the most challenging race conditions we’ve ever experienced it certainly proved to be the case.

“The race conditions were extremely challenging, not just in terms of the wet weather but the cold. Tyre management was a key factor, and during both qualification and warm-up we kept making subtle modifications to ensure the tyres delivered peak performance.

“The technical information we gathered from this race will be extremely interesting, and as with all racing activity we’ll see what learnings we can adapt to keep improving our Giti, GT Radial and Runway tyre portfolios.”

“Four top three finishes in our race classifications in awful weather is an amazing achievement,” concluded Stefan Brohs, marketing director at Giti Tire Europe. “And we managed to bring the thrills and spills of one of motorsport’s most exciting and challenging races into the homes of millions.

“But it doesn’t stop there, all the information and video footage we have collected will be used across social media for months, and we will continue to create even more footage and drive reach and brand awareness with the remarkable Giti Tire Motorsport by WS Racing all-female team.”