– An 85-second penalty against the #47 KCMG Mercedes (Kobayashi/Krohn/Pittard/Liberati; 4th) decided the 57th Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy. Overall winners of the third round of the 2026 Nürburgring Endurance Series (NLS) were Marco Wittmann, Philipp Eng, and Robin Frijns in the #77 Schubert BMW, who benefited from the penalty. (Result)
Read more Criticism of George Russell: “He is playing a certain game there”
Actually, everything was pointing towards the first overall victory for the Hong Kong team. David Pittard defended the lead at the start and handed over the car while in the lead. When Jesse Krohn got in, there were a series of Code 60 zones on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. One of them proved fatal for the Finn: he was caught speeding at 115 km/h.
This resulted in an 85-second penalty and two DMSB penalty points. Krohn cannot afford any more penalty points, otherwise his permit will be revoked. The penalty dropped the Mercedes-AMG GT3 back to fifth place.
At that point, the #23 Gamota BMW (Zsigo/Kranz/Jahn; 6th) was surprisingly in the lead. Nordschleife veterans Moritz Kranz, who had to take a break in the 2025 season due to injury after a testing accident, and David Jahn brought the Slovakian BMW M4 GT3 Evo to the front.
Naturally, team boss Antal Zsigo, as an amateur driver, could not keep up with the pace of his teammates in the final stint and quickly fell back, allowing Frijns, Vincent Kolb in the #65 HRT Ford (Olsen/Vervisch/Mies/Kolb), Ayhancan Güven in the #911 Manthey Porsche (Campbell/Güven) “Grello”, and Kamui Kobayashi in the KCMG Mercedes to pass quickly. However, the victory in SP9 Pro-Am was secured for Gamota Racing.
Güven and Kolb with an exciting duel
The Schubert BMW, which had a very cautious Nordschleife comeback at the season opener, was aiming for much greater success this time and inherited the overall victory.
Behind them, there was a thrilling battle for second place between the HRT Ford and the “Grello”. Both had started from relatively far back (Ford P14, “Grello” P18), but left all Cup Porsches behind in the first lap. During the race, both vehicles swapped positions several times. There was even a small rear-end collision in a Code 60.
Güven made the decisive move in the third-to-last lap when he surprised Kolb in the Sabine Schmitz corner. Thus, the “Grello” took second place and the Ford P3, followed by the KCMG Mercedes and the #75 Max Kruse Audi (D. Fugel/M. Fugel/Leuchter; 5th), which won the AT1 class.
Read more Max Verstappen advised Gianpiero Lambiase to switch
The top 10 behind them were completed by the Gamota BMW, the #5 Black Falcon Porsche (Kaya/Arrow/Stursberg; 7th) as the winner of SP9 Am, the #786 Renazzo Lamborghini (Nana/Breuer/”Schmidtmann”/Mutsch; 8th), the #66 Reiter KTM (Born/Hoffmeister/Apotheloz/Marchewicz; 9th) as the winner of SPX, and the winner of the Cup2 class, the #901 Sorg Porsche (Grütter/Grosse; 10th).
Early exit for the BMW Z4 GT3
The #7 Konrad Lamborghini (Engelhart/Lefterow/Stalidzane; DNF) had to end the race early due to an impact on the Breidscheid bridge, as did the #44 Falken Porsche (Bachler/Leuchter; DNF), which retired due to a puncture.
Very bitter for the fans: The crowd favorite, the #40 Posavac Z4 (Posavac/Funke/Nikolaus; DNF), crashed at the Nordschleife entrance in the first hour of the race. At least the damage looked manageable at first glance. Two Z4 GT3s are expected to start at the 24-hour race.
One of the HWA EVO.Rs made it through; the #62 (Ludwig/Green/Arnold; 18th) saw the checkered flag with a personal best lap of 8:27.081 minutes. The sister car #61 (Holstad/Gebhardt/Asch; DNF) retired at the halfway point with a puncture.
The Verstappen Racing team was not at the start this time. The operational team Winward Racing was competing in the GT World Challenge (GTWC) Europe in Le Castellet. Their season opener is also the reason why the SP9 class, with 15 participants, was relatively sparsely populated for an NLS race before the 24-hour race.
The 2026 NLS will continue next weekend. With the two 4-hour races as part of the 24h Qualifiers, the first half of the season will already be concluded.
Read more Exclusive: Yamaha signs Ai Ogura as teammate of Jorge Martin 2027
