BMW Motorsport: Nurburgring 24 Hour Race Qualifying

When the 31st 24h-Race Nurburgring starts at 15.00 on Saturday (31st May)
theTeam BMW Motorsport entered M3 GTR number 42, driven by Hans-Joachim
Stuck (GER), Boris Said (USA) and John Nielsen (DNK) will start from 5th on
the grid, while the car driven by Dirk Müller (GER), Jörg Müller (GER) and
Claudia Hürtgen (GER) will start from 7th. Reserve driver for both of these
cars will be Marc Duez (BEL). While Marc is the team's most successful
driver at this event, with four wins to his credit, it was Hans-Joachim who
gave BMW its first win here in 1970.

In the first qualifying session from 10.00 to 12.00 Jörg set the best time
of the day for car no 43 with 9mins 09.13secs, while the best time for car
no 42 of 9mins 08.77secs was set by Hans-Joachim in the evening session.The
morning session was held in hot and sunny conditions, but at 17.30 the
heavans opened and a storm of biblical proportions hit the Eifel mountains.
The standing water on the track delayed the start of final qualifying for an
hour so the session was from 20.00 to 23.00.

Albert Biermann, Technical Director of Team BMW Motorsport:  "We are here
for the first time since our victory in 1998, and are very satisfied with
our qualifying results. For the second qualifying session we fitted the race
engines to the cars so we were not expecting to go a lot faster."

Charly Lamm, Team Manager of Team BMW Motorsport: "We had a fantastic day
 because we were able to compete with the BMW M3 GTRs again. To be back here
at the Nürburgring competing on the Nordshleife is a great pleasure for all
of us at Team BMW Motorsport. We had a task to complete today in two
sessions of qualifying. We used them to dial in the drivers and the cars and
get ourselves used to long distance racing again. We enjoyed today very
much, are happy with the progress we made and really look forward to the
race tomorrow."

Car No 42 - BMW M3 GTR - Hans-Joachim Stuck will start the race

Hans-Joachim Stuck/Boris Said/John Nielsen/Marc Duez

Car No 43 - BMW M3 GTR - Jörg Müller will start the race

Jörg Müller/Dirk Müller/Claudia Hürtgen/Marc Duez

Results:  1. J Alzen/A Klasen/U Alzen/M Bartels (Porsche 996 Turbo) 9m
00.26s, 2. L Luhr/E Collard/T Bernhard (Porsche 996) 9m 02.90s, 3. P
Dumbreck/J Bleekemolen/C Menzel/V Strycek (Opel Astra V8 Coupe) 9m
04.44, 4. P Zakowski/P Lamy/R Lechner (Dodge Viper) 9m 04.52s, 5. H
Stuck/B Said/J Nielsen/M Duez (BMW M3 GTR) 9m 08.77s, 6. M Reuter/T
Scheider/M Tiemann/V Strycek (Opel Astra V8 Coupe) 9m 09.13s, 7. J
Müller/D Müller/C Hürtgen/M Duez (BMW M3 GTR) 9m 09.13s, 8. K
Wendlinger/C Abt/K Nissen/W Marco (Audi TT-R) 9m10.50s, 9. C Abt/F
Biela/M Ekström/K Wendlinger (Audi TT-R) 9m 11.57s, 10. J Scheid/O
Kainz/M Merten (BMW) 9m 21.22s.

The 24 hour race, which is run over the 25.951mile Nordschleife circuit,
starts at 15.00 on Saturday, 31st May.