Subaru WRX STI Clinches A Much Sought-After Class Win In The Nurburgring 24-Hour Race

One of the world's biggest touring car races - the Nürburgring 24-Hour Race - was held at the Nürburgring circuit (25.378km/lap), located in a hilly region of western Germany from June 23 to 26, 2011. A SUBARU WRX STI 4-door model from Subaru Tecnica International Inc. (STI) entered the SP3T class, which is for sub-2 litre turbocharged vehicles. It completed the 24-hour race without any problems or accidents to come in 21st overall and win the class. For the most part, their race went as planned and turned out perfectly.

With over 210 cars starting together, the Nürburgring 24-Hour Race is famous for its number of entries as well as the narrow tracks that go through a forest area. STI first participated in this race in 2008 and this was STI's fourth time here. Since its first outing at Nürburgring, STI has been aiming for a class win and steadily improving its cars' performance. The car for this year was built for races based on the STI complete car - the WRS STI tS. Following last year's result of fourth in its class in the 24-hour race, the team competed in the 6-hour VLN endurance race this year, which had taken place on the same Nürburgring circuit on May 14, with an eye on a class win in the big race. In this shorter event, drivers familiarized themselves to the new car and the track, and the car was worked out to suit the course conditions. As for the drivers who got behind the wheel of the WRX STI, the team brought back Toshihiro Yoshida, who has a lot of experience in this race as well as Carlo van Dam from Holland and Marcel Engels from Germany, both of whom joined the team last year. As the fourth driver, the team brought in Kouta Sasaki - a regular SUPER GT driver.

The final race kicked off at 4:00 p.m. on June 25 in wet conditions. Starting from sixth position in the class as a result of the qualifier, the WRX STI moved up several places to take over the lead in its class by the one-hour mark. The conditions turned dry later on, but the WRX STI held on to top position and made it through to the end after 24 hours. It ran a total of 142 laps, which is around 3,603.7 km through one day and one night. Team Manager Hideharu Tatsumi, General Manager of STI's Vehicle Experiment Department, said, "This time, the purpose was to fight against the world's best cars with a car that STI developed and to win. I am very pleased we achieved this goal. We've been able to prove here that STI's direction in creating cars is not wrong. I hope that we've been able to convey our message - that STI cars provide pleasure to as many Subaru owners as possible."