Shift Up Now Athlete Pippa Mann, along with teammates Martin Rich, Alvaro Fontes and Guillermo Aso, ran in podium contention through the halfway point of the 23rd running of the ADAC RAVENOL Nurburgring 24 Hours on June 21-22, 2025, before misfortune saw them drop back back in the second half of the race.
Driving for Breakell Racing in the No. 932 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport, the team had three qualifying sessions and a warmup leading up to Saturday’s 24-hour competition. More than 140 cars were entered, with 12 in the Cup 3 class - specifically for the Porsche Cayman GT4 chassis on Michelin tires.
This was Mann's fifth time taking part in the famous 24-hour race at the infamous circuit in the Eifel region of Germany, but her first outing in a Cayman GT4 car on the Nordschleife, and her first event driving for Breakell Racing.
The first qualifying session on the "Green Hell" took place on Thursday afternoon, and despite the 15.7-mile track's notorious reputation for bad weather, the session took place under blue skies, and uncharacteristically warm conditions. The team’s goal was for all four drivers to complete two timed laps, a requirement for each to start the race.
Mann shook down the car first, running a couple laps on the GP track. She then pitted for additional checks before heading out to the Nordschleife for her first laps in the new platform. Despite "Code 60 slow zones," the British driver felt good about having a solid starting point. Once she completed her obligatory two laps, she handed the car over to her teammates. By the end of the session, the team’s time showed them qualified in eighth.
Later that day, the driver order was partly reversed for the night-time qualifying session. Mann took her only laps in the second session after the sun had set, focusing on learning her night-time reference markers, while doing her best to close the delta to a daylight lap time.
On Friday, for the third and final qualifying session, Mann was the only driver in the car. The team’s goal was to bed additional brakes for the race and experiment with small setup changes for race day. Despite not using new Michelin tires, she was able to run a lap on the Nordschleife without any slow zones for incidents, and set a faster qualifying time for the 932 Breakell Racing Cayman GT4, putting the team sixth in the Cup 3 class on the starting grid.
After the qualifying sessions, the team held their pre-race meeting to discuss driver order and strategy. Due to the abnormally warm temperatures for the event, and high cockpit temperatures in the Cayman, the team elected to run single stints throughout the race - rotating continuously through the drivers, and to have Fontes start the race based on his previous experience starting the 2022 Nurburgring 24 hour race.
Race day dawned bright and sunny, and with the now familiar warm temperatures. The Breakell Racing team opted not to participate in the warmup, instead choosing to use the additional space available while competitors sharing their garage were on track to practice driver changes.
At 4:00pm local time, the 2025 ADAC RAVENOL Nurburgring 24 Hours began in front of more than 280,000 race fans.
Fontes was behind the wheel for the start, which was clean and green through the first few corners. As the field entered the Nordschleife, Code 60 zones appeared for various incidents on track. Fontes avoided the chaos and finished his stint in ninth place in the Cup 3 class.
When Mann took over, she was only able to complete her out-lap before a power outage short- circuited everything on pit lane, including the official timing and scoring software. The race was red-flagged, bringing everyone back to pit lane for an extensive reorganizing process. The Breakell Racing team used the opportunity to top off the car’s fuel so Mann could run a full stint.
Once the grid was reissued, the field went out for another formation lap at 7:45pm local followed by a single file restart on the GP track front straight. Mann made a clean start, and avoided two cars ahead that made contact with each other in turn 1. She made her first pass in class heading into turn four, and immediately focused on the next car ahead. However with the entire Cup 3 class all porsche Cayman GT4 chassis of the same era, with the same power, and on the same tires, at first she found it tough to find the advantage needed to make a pass despite being faster.
As the field entered the Nordschleife, she quickly realized that she was able to gain an advantage on her competitors in some of the faster corners. She set up her next in class pass after Flugplatz, on the run up into the fast, fifth-gear Schwedenkreuz left hander, and was then able to immediately execute another pass at the top of Fuchsrohre (Fox Hole) as the Caymans headed into Adenaur Forest. Her next pass came at Metzgesfeld, again by setting herself up with a run coming off another set of fast corners.
Mann then followed the car ahead for a large section of the track before the fast, left-hand corner coming off the carousel to set her up for a run into Hohe Acht. This put the team in fifth in class and gave Mann some clean air before catching the next group of cars. Her next lap was the fourth-fastest in class so far, and would hold to keep the Breakell Racing Cayman fourth-fastest car in Cup 3 for the rest of the 24 hour race.
At that point, Mann got trapped behind two Golf GTI TCR cars, and was sandwiched between them and an Aston Martin GT4 behind. It took her most of a lap to pass the two cars, which made their speed in very different areas of the race track to the Cayman, and then she had clean air again for part of a lap. However the first starting group of approximately 30 GT3 cars had caught the second starting group of GT4 cars, TCR cars and Porsche Caymans, and was coming through in big packs of cars. Mann's next task was now to navigate the faster traffic with minimal risk, and minimal time loss.
By the end of her stint, Mann was still holding onto the fifth position with a good gap to the next Cayman back. Her teammates took their turns in the car with fast, clean stints, as the No. 932 team continued to quietly advance, moving up the overall and class ladders.
When Mann’s second stint began around 1:30am, the team had been cycling between second and third in class, depending on the pit stop cycles. With six cars still on the same lap, Mann’s goal was simply to drive as fast and clean as possible.
There were just two slow-zone free laps during her stint, at which point Mann set her best nighttime laps at Nordschleife. She also achieved a personal goal of significantly lowering the delta from day to night, into a window similar to the GT3 Pro cars. As a result, the podium started to look like a highly-likely result.
As the sun rose, only four cars remained on the same lap, and the Breakell Racing team was proud to have broken into the top 50 in overall timing and scoring lists.
However, in the second stint after sunrise, a mistake on track from one of Mann’s teammates forced the team to bring the car to the garage for repairs and a new radiator. When they finally returned to the track, the time and laps lost put them sixth overall in class, and second in their sub-class for line-ups comprised of Bronze and Silver drivers, which they maintained through another round of driver cycles.
When a second incident left the Cayman GT4 car stranded near the Carousel, the team was in jeopardy of a DNF due to the rule that teams must take the checkered flag to be classified. So, several team members trekked several kilometers through the Efiel Forest to assess the damage, and persuade the marshalls and corner workers to return the car to the box. With just two hours to go, the Breakell Racing Cayman arrived in the pit-lane garage, and the team put forth an incredible effort to salvage the run. And with one hour remaining in the race, they were back on track.
Incredibly, the No. 932 team was still ahead of other cars making repairs from various incidents. And during the final stint, when another Cayman had unrepairable contact, the Breakell Racing team was awarded sixth place in class, and second in their sub-class.
“I’m so grateful that this opportunity came together to join Breakell Racing for this year’s 24- hour Nurburgring,” said Mann. “I loved competing in a class where all the cars and tires are the same. It’s incredibly satisfying to set lap times that can fight with some of the local guys, knowing we’ve all got the same equipment, and only coming here once a year.
“I’m thrilled that we were able to showcase the speed this Breakell Racing Cayman has with the fourth-fastest time in the Cup 3 class, and then run in the top three for so much of the race before the contact. So, while the final result fell short of that podium finish we were chasing mid race, no one can argue with how fast and consistently we were running. After the incidents, the determination and drive from the Breakell Racing team to get us back on track - not once, but twice to ensure we finished this race - was incredible.
“I also want to thank team owner James Breakell for bringing me into his team and trusting me with their Cayman GT4. Thank you also to the entire team for their exceptional efforts all weekend long to get our car to the checkered flag, and to everyone who helped me be here, at the 24H race this year. I would love to drive for this team again in the future, and perhaps we can come away with that podium finish in 2026!”
Members of The Inside Track by Shift Up Now can race Mann head-to-head at Nordschleife in the upcoming iRacing Summer Series on Tuesday, July 15th at 8pm, and join us for the “Master the Nurburgring” webinar on Monday, June 30th.
