Falken Motorsport go two wins for two in the NLS
- Benjamin Crundwell
- 7 hours ago
- 6 min read
Written by Benjamin Crundwell
Falken Motorsport took their second win this year in the NLS (Nürburgring Langstrecken Serie) with the No.3 Porsche 911 GT3 R, ahead of the No.34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo and the Rowe Racing No.98 BMW M4 GT3.
On Saturday morning the cars took to track to fight for their grid positions, Frank Stippler and Juta Racing took pole with the No.8 Audi R8 LMS GT3 by three seconds, ahead of the two Falken Motorsport Porsches.
At 12:00 local time (10:00 GMT) the green flag fell to start the four hour race. Stippler had a clean start, defending against the No.34 Aston Martin, who dove down the outside. Stippler kept the place as the Aston Martin went deep and dropped back to fifth place.
At the end of the first lap, Stippler had extended his lead, as the Haupt Racing No.2 Mustang was in second, trailed closely by the No.3 and No.4 Porsches respectively. Dennis Olsen, who was driving the Ford, had to defend against an attack from behind before re-entering the Nordschleife on lap two, causing the trio to lose more time to the Audi ahead.
Drivers had to slow down exiting the Karussell, where a car damaged the barrier. There was another code 60 just a few corners later, where another car had hit the barrier at the Steffan-Bellof-S. The next lap, Stippler got lucky passing a course car, gaining three seconds on the cars behind.
Entering the GP track on the third lap, the two Falken Motorsport cars switched position, allowing the No.4 to have a go at overtaking the Mustang ahead. The No.3 (driven by Alessio Picariello) lost another position to the No.16 Scherer Sport Porsche driven by Patric Niederhauser. Picariello regained the position with a brave dive into turn one.
40 minutes in, Olsen bought his Mustang into the pits for an early stop, freeing the Porsches to attack Stippler's Audi. Eventually, they both overtook Stippler, who got hampered in traffic at Kesselchen. Olsen handed the car to team owner, Hubert Haupt, but a long pitstop dropped them out of contention.
A lap after after Olsen, the No.3 came into the pits. Picariello got out the car for Dorian Boccolacci. The next lap, the No.4 came in to pit, but this time with no driver change, Tim Heinemann stayed behind the wheel.
The first round of pitstops re-shook the positions inside the top five, the No.4 led from it's teammate, the No.3. The No.34 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO, driven by Christian Krognes was the final driver in podium spots, followed closely by Niederhauser in the No.16.
Thomas Neubauer rounded out the top five in the No.45 Ferrari 296 GT3, but 50 seconds off the lead. The No.8 Audi (which Stippler had handed over to Selv) was in sixth place, a further 10 seconds behind the Ferrari ahead.
As the No.34 attempted to overtake the No.3 on the final straight, he got boxed in and lost third to Niederhauser as a result. While the rest squabbled over second place, Heinemann stretched his lead to 11 seconds.
The No.34 re-overtook the No.16 of Niederhauser, and briefly got ahead of the No.3, but Boccolacci quickly reclaimed his second place.
At the half way mark of the race, the first non-SP9 car was the No.900 CUP2 car of Alexander Hardt. His class lead was a comfortable one, the next car was more than a minute behind him. The leading AT class (cars powered by alternate fuel) car was the No.644 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, driven by Moritz Oestreich.
In 21st place overall, YouTube star Jimmy Broadbent lead the SP8T class with the No.150 BMW M4 GT4. The sim-racer, who had not done a driver change yet, built a half minute lead in his two hour stint.
After the second round of pitstops, the No.3 Falken Motorsports Porsche lead at the hands of Picariello. The No.4, driven by Dennis Marschall, who was previously leading had a slower stop, and fell to 6th, almost a minute off the sister car.
Mattia Drudi got back in the No.34 Aston Martin, which was second, nine seconds behind the leader. Five seconds behind Drudi, the No.98 BMW M4 GT3 driven by Kelvin Van der Linde was third. The BMW had run a quiet race up to this point, which paid off as he stayed out of trouble.
The Scherer Sport No.16 Porsche was in fourth place, trailed by the No.45 Ferrari. Behind the second Falken Motorsports car, the No.8 Audi had dropped a minute and a half back from the leader.
Between the second and third pitstops, the action was fairly quiet, the No.3 Porsche continued to stretch his lead out to 13 seconds to second place, and 17 seconds to third. The gap from the leader to fourth place was one minute, meaning it would be a hard task for anyone outside the top three to win overall.
The No.4 car could not find it's early pace, losing another 30 seconds to the No.3 by the third pitstop, leaving him a minute and a half behind.
As the clock hit three hours, the No.98 BMW caught up to the No.34 Aston Martin as traffic played its role. Before the BMW could mount a challenge on the Audi, he pulled into the pits for his third and final stop.
The yellow flags were bought out at the end of the Döttinger Höhe, as the No.831 Hyundai Elantra N TCR ground to a halt on the side of the track. A few minutes later another yellow flag came out as the No.7 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo I found itself pointing the wrong way on the Karussell's exit after tangling with a back marker.
The final round of pitstops shuffled the grid once again. The No.3 continued to lead, with a 15 second advantage to Krognes in the No.34 Aston Martin. The No.16 Scherer Sport Porsche had a tussle with Raffaele Marciello, who had taken over the No.98 BMW, the Porsche claimed third place on the podium with 20 minutes to go.
The No.8 Audi managed to jump into the top five at the hands of Alexey Veremenko, ahead of the No.4. The No.45 Ferrari dropped down the seventh place, although a top five finish was still possible as he was just three seconds behind the the No.8.
The No.34 Aston Martin caught the leader on the final lap, and overtook him on the Nordschleife, however it received a 37 second penalty for breaching the minimum pitstop time by seven seconds. This penalty confirmed the win for Boccolacci in the No.3 Porsche, one better than the previous NLS round when the car finished second.
An excellent charge from Krognes in the Aston Martin allowed him to keep second place despite his penalty. Although Marciello was pushing to catch second on the final lap, he couldn't get within 37 seconds of Krognes, so he finished third, a good result for the No.98 BMW on a day where they were not one of the faster cars.
Patrick Pilet finished fourth in the No.16 Porsche, the car had a shot at finishing on the podium, however it could not match the pace of Marciello in the final 30 minutes. The No. 4 Falken Motorsports Porsche finished fifth, a slow pitstop preventing them the opportunity to win both of the first two races of the 2025 NLS season.
The No.45 Ferrari could only recover to sixth place, and the No.8 Audi finished only seventh, despite starting on pole. The two Ford Mustang's finished eight and tenth, over a minute behind the Audi. The Ford's were split by the first non-SP9 car, the No.921 CUP2 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Car, who was ninth overall.
Race Result
1st No.3 Falken Motorsports, Porsche
2nd No.34 Walkenhorst Motorsport, Aston Martin
3rd No.98 ROWE Racing, BMW
4th No.16 Scherer Sport PHX, Porsche
5th No.4 Falken Motorsports, Porsche
6th No.45 Realize Kondo Racing, Ferrari
7th No.8 Juta Racing, Audi
8th No.2 Haupt Racing, Ford
9th No.921 Mühlner Motorsport, Porsche (CUP2)
10th No.6 Haupt Racing, Ford
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