Datum: 18.12.2014 · 24h Le Mans

2nd at the 25h of Thunderhill 2014

Pierre Ehret and his teammates Anthony Ward, Kelly Collins, Tom Haacker, Spencer Trenery and Tommy Sadler finished the 14th running of the Thunderhill 25h on the 6th and 7th December with a second overall and a class win in the GT-category. After 661 laps their Award Motorsport / Ehret Family Winery Porsche 911 Cup finished 21 laps behind the eventual winner, the Davidson Racing Norma-BMW prototype. A flawless steady run by all pilots without any accidents or unplanned stops gave the Porsche Crew a shot for the overall win. Just the remaining prototype car  prevented a 2nd win for Ehret and his teammates after the win 2012 and another 2nd in 2009 for the german pilot.

Ehret, who turned the fastest race-lap of the Porsche was satisfied with the result after the race: "All pilots and the team did a perfect job on the race. Our 2013 Porsche 911 was again a solid car and the one to have for such a race. Kelly Collins, who was brought to us as a late addition to the team by Tom was a helpful asset, especially in beginning of the race where he took the starting stint. We did not expect the prototypes to last, but as this happened to the remaining car in front of us, we had no chance for the win as our laptimes were 7-8s higher than the ones of the open car. The race was very good and thank god it stayed dry despite the wet qualifying.  But for some reasons it was far from being as competetive as 2009 where we also finished 2nd and the winning distance was 761 laps. This year we were missing all the GT3-cars from last year and we were the only Porsche on the grid. Plus we had a huge amount of yellows related to the 54 car grid and even an accident-related red flag during the night, which all slowed down the pace of the race. So the machinery was not as high level as the pilots we had in the top-cars.

But in the end our team was closer to a potential win as it seemed. One member of the winning crew admitted to me that their car was running with just 2 remaining gears and just on 5 remaining cylinders - so with an hour more it would have been ours. But with 2nd overall and the ES-class win we grabbed our honours today. Next year we plan to be back - hopefully with more competition from Porsche-Cup and GT3-cars."

The 14th edition of the 25hours of Thunderhill, the longest endurance race in North America ended with a win of the #17 Davidson Racing Norma M20F-BMW. It´s pilots Brian Friselle, Kyle Marcelli, Randy Pobst, Bob Davidson and Alex Lloyd took the chequered flag after 682 laps with a 21 lap advantage on the Award Motorsport/Ehret Family Winery-Porsche piloted  Pierre Ehret, Anthony Ward, Tom Haacker, Kelly Collins, Spencer Trenery and Tommy Sadler. The fastest GT-team on the podium was followed by the #6 Stammer Inc. / Bavarian Performance Team BMW of Jeffrey Stammer, Derek Welch, Matt Crandall and Eddie Nakato who finised on the last podium-step 18 laps behind the Porsche-Crew.