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The Alfa Romeo 147 JTD scored its third consecutive victory in the Diesel Class of the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, confirming the supremacy of the Multijet injection system in almost impossible conditions.

With two Golden Serpents – a symbolic reference to the traditional Alfa Romeo shield – already adorning the flanks of the cars, last weekend’s results added a third trophy to the collection. The Alfa 147 JTD 20V Multijet secured its third consecutive win at the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, in the hotly contested Diesel Class.

At the helm were former F1 driver Michael Bartels, former DTM driver Timo Scheider, Stefan Neuberger (head instructor at the Alfa Romeo Sports Driving School) and Herbert Schürg (Alfa Romeo test engineer). The Alfas easily dominated their 23 rivals in the Diesel Class, scoring an excellent 13th place in the overall classification, out of a total 216 entrants, ahead of many petrol-driven cars, some of which with more than twice the horsepower.

Just as it had done in the previous two 24 hour events, the Alfa Romeo 147 JTD made full use of the reliability and thrift of its state of the art Multijet injection technology. In conquering its third Diesel Class victory, the JTD completed 124 laps of the tortuous roller coaster ride through the Eifel hills: a demanding endurance test lasting 3,147 kilometres, during which the five cylinder turbodiesel ran with chronometric precision.

Each driver change was also perfectly executed by the Alfa Romeo Sports Division precisely on the time limit (2½ hours per shift). The few unscheduled pitstops were caused by changes in the weather. Repeated, violent downpours and temperatures around freezing reconfirmed Nordschleife’s reputation as the “Green Hell”, forcing teams to make frequent changes from slick to rain tyres and vice versa.

“The 147’s setup was a great advantage in these awful conditions” said Michael Bartels, who is also currently engaged in the FIA GT, driving a Maserati MC-12, “in both the wet and the dry, we were always able to drive at the limit”. If Bartels and his team-mates were not deterred by the weather, the approximately 180 thousand fans who lined the over 25 kilometres of track were equally determined.

The second car fielded by the Alfa Romeo Sports Division, the Alfa GT 1.9 JTD 16V Multijet, was less fortunate, however. Powered also by a turbodiesel unit, the coupe had finished the qualifying sessions in second place, behind the Alfa 147 JTD, but an off-track crash in the early stages of the race made an engine change necessary.