The weekend just gone marked our final race before the iconic Nürburgring 24-Hour Race, which takes place in just under two weeks. I was feeling confident that we were going to get a good result.

Testing was a little different than usual as we had a number of passenger rides to give to our team sponsors, but we still had plenty of time to refine the race setup before qualifying on Saturday morning.

Having qualifying and the race on Saturday meant it was due to be a big day already, but it also marked the start of the prestigious Le Mans 24 hours race in France, and I was celebrating my 22nd Birthday too – a day on which any driver would be happy to take a trophy home.

The track looked wet in the morning. Tim Mullen (one of my co-drivers, and who will be joining me in the 24 hour race) was first in the car. He completed a few laps and found that it still damp in a number of places, and the pressure was on me as I was told I would only have enough time to get one flying lap in qualifying.

I went out and pushed as hard as I could but had to remain on the side of caution for quite a few of the corners where the trees cast shadows on the track. I could feel the car sliding around more than I would have liked, but I had an extremely clear run and didn’t have to overtake many cars on my one and only lap.

By the time I had got around to the finish line I had nailed the lap in 8:56.3 seconds, and it meant we’d qualified first in class and 26th overall. I also discovered I’d managed to break the old lap record in our category, which was great news as our main competitor had struggled in the damp conditions.

Andreas Montmann started the race for us. Qualifying so far up the ranking might have been tough as we were starting amongst faster cars once again. Despite this, Andréas held his own, and completed his stint as second-in-class, when he handed over to Phil Quaife.

My turn behind the wheel came an hour and 30 minutes before the end. A full stint with a splash and dash of fuel at the end, I had eaten quite a distance into the gap the leaders had built up. Pushing on every corner and straight, I was having to drive the car to it’s limits. With 30 minutes to go our main rival pitted for their last driver change, but I stayed out for another lap. This left us roughly 20 minutes to go and we stole a quick pit stop.

I made it out of the pits just as it started raining. At this point I had a hundred thoughts running through my head; were we in the lead? Where was the other car in our class? How much distance was there between us? And did I need to pit again for wet tyres? The team radioed in confirming that we were indeed in the lead, and that I should continue onto the Nordschleife.

At this point it was starting to get pretty wet. There was a pack of about ten cars in front of me, and I navigated past them all in the tricky conditions just before the team radioed in again, this time to tell me the race had been cut short due to dangerous conditions. The race was over and we had come home with the biggest trophy – First in Class.

This was a perfect result for my birthday. The team had done a great job on the radio and in the pits. All our stops had been faultless, and together we had executed the race perfectly.

With less than ten days to go before we go back to the Nürburgring for the 24 hour event, we are all hopeful to repeat the result next time. Over 250 cars will be starting on the grid, so it’s guaranteed action and one of my toughest races to date. I’m looking forward to seeing how we get on and I’m confident that we have a good chance of a back-to-back win.

For live updates during the 24 hours follow my progress through www.twitter.com/adamchristo

Arriving to the Nürburgring for the third time this year, we were all hopeful for our most successful race event to date.

Testing began on Friday afternoon and for the main part went very well, but the weather forecast looked grubby for Saturday’s main race event.

As it turned out, Saturday morning was little cold and damp, but a lot better than we had expected. I was in the car for the qualifying stage and the plan was to do one lap on old tyres to make sure the track wasn’t pooling water, then swap out for new tyres and go for a flying lap.

I completed my first lap in 9 minutes and 1 second, but the red flags came out just as I passed the line and ended the session due to a accident involving another car. We still qualified second in our class, and 66th overall.

Phil was first in the car for the race, and he completed eight laps before handing over to me in. We were in 5th place. The changeover pit stop went smoothly except my radio system didn’t connect correctly; I could hear the team but they couldn’t hear me. Luckily we were able to communicate using a bit of ‚morse code‘, with me keying in with the radio to confirm, but I was still unable to speak.

I completed my 8 laps, – a full fuel stint – and handed the car over to Andreas in 2nd position to complete the rest of the 4 hour race. We were slowly catching the leaders but just ran out of time as the race came to an end, crossing the line in 2nd position, and 41st overall.

Our next race is the final four hour event before the Nürburgring 24 hours. With every lap of the Nürburgring we get better and better, so were expecting to climb the last step on the podium shortly, and I’m looking forward to taking our first win at the next race on 11th June.

It proved to be a tough weekend of racing for us at the infamous Nürburgring circuit.

Testing on Friday was just two laps of the 25km track, and qualifying started at the break of dawn on Saturday. Our BMW M3 GT felt good on new tyres, and I completed the first lap in 9 minutes and 11.3 seconds.

That was a quick start, but knew I could improve on that time. I completed my second flying lap in 9:03.5 which secured us a first place in our category (that gave us 40th place on the grid, a situation only possible when there are 200 cars racing at exactly the same time!)

The race started at noon and I was first in the car as I had done qualifying for the team. The start of these races is chaotic as everybody races down to the first corner trying to get ahead and claim an advantage, beginning on the Grand Prix F1 circuit and then moving out onto the Nordschlife.

With many of the Porsches and cars surrounding me having greater power and straight line speed, it was pretty tough trying to hold on to my initial track position as I’d out-qualified a lot of faster cars, but I managed to retain first-in-class for the majority of my opening stint.

It soon was time for new tyres, fuel and a driver change. The pitstop went smoothly; my co-driver was in the hotseat and I was watching our progress when suddenly a car appeared in our team garage. I thought it was our teammates in the other car, but my heart sunk when I realised it was ours. He explained later that he’d had been forced to take evasive action to avoid contact with another car and in the fallout had accidentally clipped the tyre wall in the chicane. Unfortunately this left our car limping into the Outland with steering damage.

The team jumped onto the car to repair it, but it was too badly damaged to continue. The wheel, steering, and the steering pump all were all affected, and we had to retire us from the race just 1.5 hours in to the 6 hour marathon.

It was a real shame that the things had ended so early for us, but we had demonstrated good progress with the car set up, and the whole team had done a great job throughout the weekend.

I’m looking forward to getting back to the track for my third Nürburgring experience in just two weeks time. Although we didn’t get quite the result we were looking for on this trip, I’m confident we will be able to secure a place on the podium in our next race.

The final race before the huge 24 hours challenge around the Nürburgring will be held on the 25th-26th June.

Both the Le Mans Series and the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup head to Belgium this weekend for the 1000kms of Spa. With one car entered in each championship, CRS will run two Ferrari 430s side-by-side for the first time this year in the GTE-Am class.

The No.82 CRS Ferrari of Klaas Hummel, Adam Christodoulou and Phil Quaife was on for an exceptional result at the Paul Ricard LMS round a few weeks ago but hit trouble in the pits when the starter motor faltered. This time out, says Adam Christodoulou, they are gunning for the podium:

“We just missed out on the podium at Ricard,” said Adam. “The team has been working hard since then to solve the starter motor problem and I don’t see any reason why we can’t go to Spa and get a top result. We’ve all raced there before and the team knows it well. We showed we had the pace at Ricard so we’re looking forward to getting out there and getting a good result.”

For the No.62 driving squad of Pierre Ehret, Shaun Lynn and Roger Wills, Spa is the warm up event for the big one in June: the Le Mans 24 Hours. After the recent Le Mans Test Day all three drivers are eager to get back on track and hope to bag some points in Belgium, as Shaun Lynn explains:

“I’m very much looking forward to Spa,” said Shaun. “It’s a track I know well as I have won the six and four-hour historic races there. This is our last event before we head to Le Mans, which is the highlight of the season for us. I think we have a good chance of grabbing a podium if we keep it clean and go strong and steady. It’s going to be a sprint though; it’s never an easy ride at Spa and even though it’s a big track you can quickly run out of room at places like Eau Rouge. It will be good to race the sister CRS car for the first time this year and the fact we can share data will help us all.”

The six-hour race gets underway at 1405hrs on Saturday 7 May. Catch the later stages of the race on Eurosport or listen to the whole race live at www.radiolemans.com.