NLS1 - Falken dominate the opening NLS weekend

A brand-new season of the NLS sees new drivers, new teams, new cars, and new ways of interrupting qualifying, meanwhile Falken Motorsports dominate the race!

QUALIFYING

The qualifying session started as scheduled, but was quickly red flagged, because the track was unfinished. Usually there is a cut-through after the Grand Prix circuit to the right, so that the drivers don’t have to drive the full eight-minute outlap (at least for SP9/GT3 cars). This was not the case, therefore the session was red flagged in order to open the barriers. Due to this, the session started late with a thirty minute delay, which was added to the end of the session.

Frank Stippler, a well known driver around the ring, set the best time with a 7:51.530 in the #8 Juta Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, not in the HRT Performance Ford Mustang GT3 he was expected to be driving in. His #2 HRT Ford Performance Mustang had gone off at Pflanzgarten during qualifying with Nico Bastian at the wheel, and was subsequently withdrawn from the race.

Alongside the Juta Racing Audi on the front row, was the #36 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin of Christian Krognes and Henry Walkenhorst. The second row saw the #69 Dörr Motorsport McLaren 720s GT3 Evo and the #45 Kondo Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, meanwhile the highest Porsche from Black Falcon qualified in tenth, while the 2024 team champions Falken Motorsport could only manage eleventh and fifteenth. Manthey EMA’s “Grello” was only sixteenth in the qualifying order.

Photo: Jochen Merkle

RACE

The Nürburgring Nordschleife held up to its unpredictable weather with a dry, damp and wet start on different parts of the track. Although the track dried up quickly, the duo of Falken Porsches, along with a lot of other GT3 cars, headed into the pits for a change to dry tyres.

This lead to the field being mixed up, with the #69 Dörr Motorsport McLaren leading as it started on the slick tyres. The #48 Black Falcon Porsche and the #911 Manthey EMA Porsche spun on the first lap, but quickly recovered and then hit the barriers lightly in Hatzenbach, proving the tricky conditions.

Both Falken Porsches stayed close together for the whole race, with the #3 overtaking the #4 in the pits with only nine laps to go. For the last stint the two were inseparable, but in the end, the #3 car managed to stay in the lead, followed by the sister car. The Manthey EMA #911 Porsche rounded out the SP9 podium, while the #54 Dinamic GT Porsche finished in fourth, an insane finish after a disappointing qualifying for the Stuttgart cars. 

Photo: Porsche Motorsport

The first non Porsche car was the #98 ROWE Racing BMW GT3 in fifth, the only BMW GT3 car in this race. The Dörr McLaren who was leading for a good amount of the race finished in seventh, but was one of the seven disqualified cars after using illegal tyres at the start of the race. The same fate occurred for the #36 Walkenhorst Aston Martin losing its thirteenth place having made the same mistake. 

The debut race of the two HRT Performance Ford Mustang’s would end in a DNS for the #2 car after it’s qualifying crash, and a twelfth place for the remaining #6 car, gaining an additional two places after the race due to the disqualifications.

Four SP9 cars did not see the checkered flag, the #14 GetSpeed Mercedes which was stranded off track after half an hour of the race, the #7 Konrad Lamborghini collided with a Porsche Cayman, and the #786 Lamborghini from Renazzo Motorsport had a technical issue after only an hour. The #50 Equipe-Vitesse Audi was unable to finish the race after a collision in Schwalbenschwanz, only adding a few kilometres to its six-figure kilometre reading.

The hugely popular #150 Team BILSTEIN by BLACK FALCON BMW M4 GT4 of influencers Jimmy Broadbent, Steve Brown, Misha Charoudin, and non-influencer, but highly talented Manuel Metzger finished first in their class with a total of 26 laps completed in their new evo-spec M4.

NLS2 - ADAC Ruhrpott-Trophy

The second round of the 2025 Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie will happen on the 26th April, while further rounds see the anticipation grow for the 24 Hour qualifiers, and subsequent Intercontinental GT Challenge round in mid-June.