2024 NLS(Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie) Round 6 Report

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The 2024 NLS (Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie) season, which started in April, finally came to an end with the sixth and final round. It was held as a 4-hour race, as was the case in the previous round, on Saturday, November 16th, and two cars equipped with Yokohama Tire’s products competed in the SP9 Pro class, the top category of the series.

Having raced with Yokohama Tire since the opening round this year, Team ADVAN x HRT ran the no.6 Mercedes-AMG GT3. The trio of Dennis Fetzer, Finn Wiebelhause, and Salman Owega drove the car. Wiebelhause was a new addition to the no.6 car’s crew. The 18-year-old youngster is promising and has a bright future in motor racing, which was confirmed by a victory in the ADAC GT Masters race held at Redbull Ring this past September.

Scherer Sport PHX joined the Yokohama Tire squad from the previous round. The team trusted its Audi R8 GT3 EVO2 to the pair of veteran drivers, Frank Stippler and Markus Winkelhock. Stippler contributed a lot to their second-place finish in the fifth round. His partner this time, Winkelhock, is an ex-Grand Prix driver – although he started only one Grand Prix – and a three-time winner of the Nürburgring 24-hour race.

The 90-minute qualifying session took place in the morning hours under overcast skies. Stippler, behind the wheel of Scherer Sport PHX’s Audi, clocked a time of the 7’55” level on his first timed lap and then improved it to 7’53″034 on the next lap. It was good enough to place the car on the top of the timing screen when he returned to the pit.

Three Team ADVAN x HRT drivers all made their qualifying attempts by turns, starting with Fetzer. And Owega, who drove the car last, set their fastest time, 7’56″232, and secured the fourth grid overall.

Scherer Sport PHX’s no.15 Audi stayed in the top slot until the final minutes of the session. But then the no.48 Mercedes-AMG marked a time in the 7’51” level, beating the Audi to take the pole position. Still, the no.15 car secured the front-row start position for the race.

There was a 2-hour interval between the qualifying and the race on the day’s schedule. But the teams effectively had one hour and ten minutes available, including the pit walk, a fan-entertainment event, until the time they had to put their cars on the grids. So, they were incredibly busy with the preparation work for the race. The pit lane was crowded with the fans who joined the pit walk, and most of them wore thick jackets under a dark grey cloudy sky.

When the cars began to leave the pit box to take to their grids, both air and track temperatures stayed around five degrees centigrade, while a chance for rain was low, according to the weather forecast. However, some parts of this 25-km long race track could well have different conditions and even colder because of wind, for instance.

After the formation lap, the race of the season finale kicked off. Starting from the second grid, Stippler in Scherer PHX’s Audi lost two places before he reached Turn 2 but regained a position when he was going into the forest of Eifel. And on Lap 2, he made up one more position and was running in second, 1.548 seconds behind the race leader, the no.48 car.

On the next lap, Stippler reduced the gap with the no.48 Mercedes-AMG to just 0.338 seconds at the control line. But the no.17 Auston Martin closed in on him from behind, so it became an intense three-way fight for the lead.

On Lap 5, Stippler used slip-streaming the no.48 car and became side-by-side with it on its right-hand side. At the same time, the no.17 car did the same on the left-hand side, and the Audi and the Aston Martin overtook the Mercedes-AMG simultaneously on both sides of it.

However, the no.17 car got ahead of Stippler’s Audi immediately after that, which meant he was still in second even after passing the early leader. Then, he made a successful move on the Aston Martin during the final part of the lap and came back to the pit straight as the new race leader.

After losing the furious fight for the lead, the no.48 car made its first pit stop as the first one to do so in the SP9 competitors. The other five leading cars, including Scherer Sport PHX’s no.15 and Team ADVAN x HRT’s no.6, came into the pit box at the end of Lap 7 when the race’s first hour had just passed.

Stippler handed the car to Winkelhock for their second stint. The no.48 Mercedes-AMG led the race again after the stop, and the no.17 Aston Martin followed in second, ahead of Scherer Sport PHX’s Audi. But Winkelhock had momentum and set 8’24”275 on Lap 10, whereas the no.48 car’s time on the same lap was 8’29”461 and the no.17 car’s was 8’27”231.

Toward the end of Lap 12, he moved up to second by overtaking the no.17 car and fended off the Aston Martin’s counterattack to keep the position. When the no.48 car did its second stop on Lap 13, Winkelhock became the interim leader. At almost the same time, the race got into its second half as the first two hours had passed.

Soon after that, a shocking image for the Scherer Sport PHX team was shown on the monitor screens. Its Audi had a mishap and halted on the course side at Hatzenbach. It was a pretty disappointing way for them to end the race since the car was regarded as one of the top contenders throughout the weekend.

On the other hand, Team ADVAN x HRT had a solid race. Owega, the starting driver of the no.6 car, drove consistently until he changed to Wiebelhause. Then, the car was handed to Fetzer for their final stint, and he ended the race in fourth, just one place shy of a podium finish, as a wrap-up of their 2024 NLS season.