What a pity it's the final results that count. Things were looking so good at 5 am for the FALKEN NISSAN Skyline GTR and its team, with 14 hours' racing behind them and an overall 3rd place under their belts. But only the drivers and engineers knew that shortly after midnight the clutch had seized, and the drivers had only managed the gear changes by applying a combination of exquisite skill and brute force.
Replacing the clutch would mean dropping out for a circuit or two, so that Tetsuo Suzuki, the FALKEN team manager, decided to take the risk and continue driving. For a while it looked as if the risk would pay off and the gearbox would survive the agony of gear changes. Yet in the end it wasn't the gear-box that was destroyed by the vicious rev changes, but a con-rod. A short, shuddering vibration, and the rod broke off the piston and ripped a hole the size of a fist in the oil sump.
Roland Asch, who was driving the Skyline when it happened, had to use all his skill and experience to stop the wildly flailing car at the end of the Hatzenbach serpentines.
As if that wasn't enough, the hot oil in contact with the exhaust caused the engine to catch fire. Quick action on the part of the track staff soon extinguished the flames - but not soon enough to prevent damage to the cable harness.
The Japanese showed true sporting spirit. After the car was towed away for a complete three-hour refit of all key parts, they resumed the race in 56th place and managed to make up five places, landing at the end in 53rd place overall and - not bad - third place in the A8 category. Exhausted and downcast, but with a certain sense of satisfaction, the Japanese team went home on Tuesday. Not before they had held extensive photo shoots on the Grand Prix course - especially the northern end - on Sunday evening and Monday, with the racing Skyline and two other souped-up street versions brought over especially from Japan.
For the Japanese fans, the appearance of the street Skylines at Nürburgring was a kind of consecration; in Japan, this race track is regarded as the absolute ultimate - a kind of "holy ground" ... or should we say holy asphalt.