Nurburgring 24 win a career high - De Phillippi

The Californian and his teammates Markus Winkelhock, Kelvin van der Linde and Chris Mies led 126 of the 158 racing laps of the Nordschleife circuit at the head of a world-class GT3 SP9 class field packed with factory-supported entries.

The winning crew maintained a comfortable lead almost all the way to the end after taking the lead in the opening hours, before a software glitch in the final two hours forced the team to make an unscheduled stop, dropping them to third behind another factory-backed Audi from Belgian team WRT, and BMW's highest finishing M6 GT3 from ROWE Racing.

"There wasn't necessarily a hint of a problem before it happened," he admitted to RACER. "But the engineers saw on the data that there was something a bit strange so they tried to do an update or reboot on the software and it caused the issue.

"That cost us. Kelvin tried to reboot the car again when he started crawling, but it wasn't working. So we boxed unexpectedly, and lost the whole lap of the Grand Prix circuit, and it was a slow lap, too. It was a big time loss."

It was a heartbreaking sequence for De Phillippi and the Land team, which collectively thought their chances of winning had passed them by. But they didn't give up, and in the end, the gamble to put on wet tires in the sudden downpour proved to be the decision of the race.

"After the first mishap," he continued, "we were hoping to get to P2, but there was no chance to really win it. I'd been saying the whole weekend when I was checking the weather app on my phone that it looked like it would rain at the end of the race and nobody believed me!

"And in the end it did rain, and because of the way the last pit stop worked out, we had slicks, but had a refueling issue that made it longer than planned. At that moment the rain got worse, and that mistake actually allowed us to make the switch to rain tires. That was so lucky, especially after everything that happened.

"I've never experienced something like it, I wanted to throw everything within reach around the garage, as we'd been leading for 20, 21 hours. Kelvin was great all weekend, and we made the decision between us drivers that we wanted him in the car at the end. He certainly did us proud in the end, and turned it around!"

In what was his second N24 start, De Phillippi was tasked with driving both of Audi Sport Team Land's R8 LMS GT3s. It made his experience of the grueling 24 hours even tougher, but the victory even sweeter.

"The race was dry, and usually people usually fly off the circuit in the wet, but there were a lot of incidents," he said when explaining how difficult his time in the cockpit was. "Inside our car (the No. 29, which he drove for all but one of his stints) it was extremely hot, too, and therefore mentally draining.

"During the pit stops, because with the fueling tank and the fuel gun, the fumes come into the cockpit, and if you're sitting there you breathe in all the fumes for three minutes, so we had to have mechanics fanning the doors each time to give us fresh air.

"Physically, we were doing double stints during the race, too, which in the heat was brutal. They had me do a double at the end before Kelvin's final stint because my teammates were so tired.

"The tempo of the race was key, because it was literally a 24-hour sprint. We were pushing, and not managing our gap. I anticipated that maybe if we had a minute- or two-minute gap then we could have driven safer than we were, taking fewer risks with the slower cars.

"But luckily nobody listened to my advice, we listened to Markus (Winkelhock) instead, who said, 'Forget that plan, it's so easy to lose 45 seconds because of a code 60, so go flat out – you either win it or bin it!' So we were flat out.

"It was a shame that we had issues with the No. 28 – it would have been nice to get both cars on the podium. Even though the setup was identical they drove so differently, so it was actually tough getting in and out of two cars. I did one double stint in the other car, and it took a while to get used to it, I couldn't attack like I could in the No. 29 and had a few mishaps and moments as a result.

"We were also possibly going to run different tires on the other car, but luckily we chose Dunlop for both. That would have made it very different. Driving two cars was an experience, that's for sure!"

Californian-born De Phillippi, who now races for Audi – mostly in Europe – emphasized that the achievement of winning one of the premier endurance races in the world has made his risk to take his talents across the pond worthwhile. He is only the second American to win the race – which continues to grow in international stature – after Sebring 12 Hours and 24 Hours of Daytona winner Boris Said's victory in 2005 with BMW.

"It's something that I do think about," he told RACER. "When you come to Europe, you're off the map for most of the U.S. media and motorsport press. They don't realize that there's a lot of big races over here. To pull this off is by far the biggest accomplishment of my career.

"It's been a long journey from Porsche Junior in 2013, to continue with Land, who took me under their wing because they believed in me, is awesome.

"We nearly won the Daytona 24 Hours this year, but lost it by a hair, so this wasn't a fluke – we're on the road to a successful program racing around the world. I hope we can continue it for future years."

Enjoy this gallery of images from the Nurburgring 24 Hours. Click on the thumbnails for larger images.

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