NLS7 2026: Fairy tale victory for Ralf Aron and Luca Stolz

– It is a little fairy tale: Ralf Aron won the 6h-ADAC-Ruhr-Pokal race of the MSC Ruhrblitz Bochum together with Luca Stolz after a five-month racing break following his serious accident at the 12 Hours of Bathurst, the season highlight of the Nürburgring Endurance Series (NLS). Second place went to the Schubert-BMW #77 (Klingmann/de Wilde/Tramnitz). (Result)

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Luca Stolz pulled away from the start. The AMG had the situation completely under control and only briefly gave up the lead due to different pit stop strategies. He didn’t have much to say at the finish: “That was a great race for us, really fun. Six hours in the best weather. I still have a grin on my face.”

Ralf Aron was naturally much more emotional: “Now it’s complete, now I’m happy. This is everything I dreamed of. I actually didn’t even dare to dream about it and tried to keep those thoughts away from me. So yes, I’m really mega happy and thanks to everyone. It was a huge pleasure to share the car with Luca. Simply perfect.”

The Schubert-BMW was the only vehicle that could keep up with the pace somewhat. After the third pit stop, Jens Klingmann was briefly just a few seconds behind the Mercedes-AMG GT3, albeit helped by pit stop strategies. But Winward clearly had the upper hand in pace over the distance.

Jens Klingmann sees it the same way: “We were a bit within striking distance at times.
Whenever we got closer, I felt like they turned it up a bit. But fair enough. I was very happy for my two teammates. Especially Tim [Tramnitz] in his first GT3 race on the Nordschleife.”

Exciting battles until the finish line

The second place of the Schubert-BMW was also not in danger. The M4 had a comfortable lead over the Black-Falcon-Porsche #48 (Assenheimer/T. Müller/Pereira; 3rd). The team had to do without Dylan Pereira at the award ceremony. The Luxembourger was already deep in France at the time of the ceremony, where he was competing in the GTWC race in Magny-Cours in the evening.

The Car-Collection-Porsche #4 (Gorojan/Fontana/Menzel) finished fourth and took second place in the Pro-Am classification. The Mühlner-Porsche #123 (Rump/Bünnagel/Nagelsdiek; 6th) was in fifth place for a long time but lost fifth place in the last lap to Pawl Lefterow in the FK-Performance-BMW #1 (Fourie/Harper/Lefterow/Oosten; 5th). This did not change Mühlner’s third place in the Pro-Am classification.

In the fight for the class win in SP9 Am, Christoph Breuer in the Renazzo-Lamborghini #786 (Nana/Breuer/Mutsch; 7th) and Gabriele Piana in the Black-Falcon-Porsche #5 (Kaya/Piana/Stursberg; 8th) faced off in the final phase.

The Porsche had received two penalties: a drive-through penalty because Piana caused a collision with the Dupre-Audi #480 (Dupre/Jü. Nett/Jo. Nett) at the start of the race. Later, a 30-second penalty followed for a speeding violation by Mike Stursberg. Ultimately, a Code 60 from the Antoniusbuche section prevented a final attack by Piana, allowing Renazzo to celebrate the class win.

The top 10 were completed by the HRT-Ford #64 (Stippler/Kolb; 9th) and the Manthey-Porsche #992 (B. Griesemann/G. Griesemann/Holzer; 10th) from SP-Pro. The Ford Mustang GT3 had previously lost time due to a strange collision.

Bizarre accident between Ford and AMG

Frank Stippler was initially in second place in the starting phase and had Adam Christodoulou in the ERA-Mercedes #20 (Tilley/Christodoulou/Hill; DNF) behind him. The US team made its debut on the Nordschleife.

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In the Bilstein curve on the Grand Prix circuit, there was a Code 120. At the exit of the curve, there are two marshals close together but on different sides of the track: Post 36 on the left, shortly after Post 37 on the right side.

Stippler saw the Code 60 sign at Post 36, Christodoulou only the green flag at Post 37. The Ford slowed down to 60, Christodoulou was surprised by the action. Both GT3 cars had to retire from the race as a result. The fault was attributed to the AMG driver.

Two other overall contenders had to retire within the first hour. Christian Krognes had to stop the Walkenhorst-Aston-Martin #35 (Krognes/Fetzer; 103rd) after four laps due to rear axle problems. A consequential damage from the accident in qualifying is possible.

The Dörr-McLaren #25 (B. Dörr/P. Dörr/Strycek; 35th) lost ground early due to a problem with the V-belt but finished the distance. The same applies to the Gamota-BMW #23 (Zsigo/Kranz/Jahn/Fernandez Laser; 38th), which was called to the pits after only three laps with the “spinning egg flag” because the fire extinguishing system showed no proper functionality.

The PROsport-Mercedes #26 (Balcaen/Palette; DNF) was another accident victim in the early phase. The up2race-Porsche #88 (Kikireschko/Heinemann; DNS) could not start the race at all after an accident at the end of qualifying.

Otherwise, the SP9 category was mostly spared from incidents, only the Juta-Audi #8 (Veremenko/”SELV”; 18th) lost a lot of time due to a half spin by “SELV” in the Hohenrain chicane, where it took a long time to get going again.

The Porsche Museum Cayman, the last built Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS, saw the checkered flag with Timo Bernhard and Jörg Bergmeister on board as fourth in the SP10 class and 44th overall. They completed a trouble-free race, allowing the documentary film, which will debut soon, to be finished. They were just over two minutes behind the class winner.

The Dacia Logan from Ollis Garage Racing was back again but had to retire in the last hour due to a technical defect.

The next race is the NLS “Double-Header” on September 12 and 13. It is expected that ex-MotoGP superstar Valentino Rossi will complete his DMSB-Permit-Nordschleife (DPN) Level A this weekend.

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