Stéphane Sarrazin's circuit racing skills helped Subaru achieve an excellent second in class result on its endurance racing debut at the Nürburgring 24 hour's race, held on 7th and 8th of May.
From the moment the race began, with a rolling start at 1500hrs on Saturday, Stephane and his three Japanese team mates took turns to push their Impreza WRX STi to the limit around the marathon 25km track, stopping only to change tyres, swap drivers and to refuel.

In the face of some treacherous weather conditions, including heavy rain and hailstorms, the specially prepared Impreza ran faultlessly and allowed the team to move up the overall classification from 42nd at the start to a remarkable finishing position of 14th overall.

In total, the team lapped the Nürburgring 124 times and covered a distance of 3,100km at an average speed of more than 129kph.

"It was my first Nürburgring experience and a really good race," said Stephane. "Unlike normal racetracks the 'ring is similar to a public road and the Impreza seems well suited to it. For me, this event has been a mixture of a rally and a race. I really enjoyed my driving stints. The STi has a low center of gravity and is a very quick circuit car but the excellent AWD system really gives it an edge with a good turn-in ability and very neutral handling through the corners. Although we pushed it hard, the car ran perfectly - in fact I was quite surprised by how we've performed on our debut. Of course we wanted to be the class winner, but I think it was a very good experience for all of us."