Endurance Weekly: 4th September - 11th September 2025
- DIVEBOMB Endurance Team
- Sep 11
- 6 min read
This week on Endurance Weekly, the DIVEBOMB endurance team looks ahead to the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie 7 and 8 (NLS) and the European Le Mans Series' (ELMS') 4 Hours of Silverstone. The team also looks back at the World Endurance Championship's (WEC's) Lone Star Le Mans, and covers all of the news stories you may have missed during the week.
NLS 7 and NLS 8 Preview
The Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS) never fails to disappoint, but this weekend especially is set to be a banger.
Two races will take place over the weekend, the ADAC ACAS Cup on Saturday and ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen on Sunday. Both races will start at 12:00 local time (10:00 GMT) lasting four hours on a combination of the Nordschleife and the GP track.
Drivers will qualify at 08:30 each morning for the respective races. Qualifying lasts 90 minutes, which seems like a significant portion of time, however with an eight minute lap time each car can only complete a handful of laps.
While it cannot be confirmed as official until the entry list is released, it looks like four time Formula One World Champion will make his racing debut on the Nordschleife. Earlier this year in May, Verstappen drove Nürburgring in a test - reportedly breaking the lap record on the layout used.
On Saturday he will not be racing in the top class, as he must earn his license first. Instead the champion will be driving a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 CS - attempting to complete the 14 laps necessary to get the certification required to race in the SP9 class.
On Sunday however, there is a chance that Verstappen has a Ferrari SP9 drive lined up, should he meet all the requirements on Saturday.
Elsewhere on the grid, the No.150 Bilstein car driven by Jimmy Broadbent, Steve Brown (known as SuperGT on the internet), Misha Charoudin and Manuel Metzger will be missing both races, the first ones they have missed this year.
Both races can be streamed for free on YouTube.
ELMS Preview: 4 Hours of Silverstone
The ELMS returns to Silverstone for the first time since before the pandemic, with fans, drivers and teams alike excited to be back.
Before everyone is focused on the track action however, Sir Chris Hoy - former cyclist and avid racer - will be hosting a fundraising event. The 'Tour de 4' is run/walk around one lap of the Silverstone circuit.
100% of the money raised will go towards raising awareness for and treating stage 4 cancer, along with researching the disease further. The run will take place on the Friday evening at 18:00, with all ticket holders being able to add the run on as an optional extra to their ticket.
Onto the track action, qualifying will get underway at 15:20 local time, starting out with LMGT3 before moving onto LMP3, LMP2 Pro-Am and then finally LMP2 itself. The race will follow at 13:00 local time on Sunday, running for four hours.
In the four championships, its mostly very tight after four round. In LMGT3, the No.59 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin heads the field on 46 points, but they're trailed very closely by the No.85 Iron Dames Porsche on 45 points.
Then comes a trio of Ferraris, with the No.50 Richard Mille AF Corse on 41 points, the No.55 Spirit of race on 40 and the No.51 AF Corse also on 40. The tight battle doesn't end there, with the No.61 Iron Lynx Mercedes on 39 points. Then is the No.82 and No.57, two and four points further back respectively.
Onto LMP3 and the championship can be sealed this weekend by the No.17 CLX Motorsport crew. They took every available point in the season up until the last race in Spa, where they had an unfortunate retirement. Nonetheless, they still lead the championship by 31 points, and just need that gap to be bigger than 26 leaving Silverstone to become champions.
It's tight again in LMP2 Pro-Am, with the No.20 Algarve Pro Racing (APR) car leading the way on 66 points after their win last time out, but they have the No.99 AO by TF 'Spike the Dragon' only three points behind them.
There's a 10 point gap back to the No's. 77, 29 and 83, who are all split by just two points.
Then finally in the premier LMP2 class, the No.48 VDS Panis car has extended their lead out to 20 points, after back to back wins in Imola and Spa. Similarly to LMP3, they can also seal the title this weekend if they leave Silverstone with a lead bigger than 26 points, however their task is slightly taller than that of CLX.
Their two closest challengers are the No.43 InterEuropol Competiton and the No.18 IDEC Sport backed by Genesis. They trail the leaders by 20 and 26 points respectively.
Be sure to tune into all of the action across the weekend, as it will be streamed live on YouTube for free.
WEC Review: Lone Star Le Mans
Winter hit at the end of the summer break as torrential rain fell down on the Circuit of the Americas. A wet track meant the race started under the safety car, then a red flag was called after an odd slip up in race control caused the order to need resetting.
The race which was meant to be six hours in Austin became four by the time the green flag fell, and No.83 AF Corse Ferrari led the way. The No.83 relinquished the lead to its championship rival, the No.51 as its pace began to fall away. A slow stop unsettled the AF Corse team further, dropping them out the top three.
As others struggled to keep their nose forwards, the No.51 and No.6 Porsche ran flawless races but the German car couldn't get within touching distance of its Italian competitor. However, as the rain started to ease, performances switched and Kévin Estre took his chance on a safety car restart.
Having led most the race, contact between the two cars gave the No.51 a puncture, tumbling it down the order. The No.6 car of Laurens Vanthoor, Matt Campbell and Estre went onto win the race, as the no.51 recovered to fifth place. The No.50 Ferrari finished second and the No.94 Peugeot finished on the podium for the first time since its first entry in 2022.
In LMGT3, the win was taken from the dominant No.77 Ford when half the grid changed to dry tyres for the final stint. With mere laps to go, the dry runners caught the wet runners, letting the No.54 Ferrari take the chequered flag first. Unfortunately it was penalised post race dropping to third, the No.95 McLaren inherited the win and the No.46 BMW finished second.
Read DIVEBOMB's full review here.
Breaking News
Intersport Racing to race in IMSA 2026
The former IMSA champions, Intersport Racing will be returning to IMSA for the first time in 15 years. Like in their previous showings in the States, Intersport will run an LMP2 car, this time in partnership with HMD Motorsports.
Although they will be racing LMP2, Intersport will be using the popular ORECA 07-Gibson, a very different looking car to what they used to race - which was open cockpit. Although the cars may look different, Intersport will try to replicate their success in 2005 when they won both the teams' and drivers' championships.
Intersports owner, Jon Field, made his return to IMSA in the No.43 Inter Europol at this years Daytona 24h. The driver lineup for 2025 is yet to be announced, however it is likely Field will be racing the cars, potentially with his son Clint Field, who used to race their LMP2 cars too.
Ford announce Mustang EVO
Having recently rebranded from 'Ford Performance' to 'Ford Racing', the American manufacturer has announced they are developing an EVO for the Mustang
The Ford Mustang GT3 was first introduced to racing in 2024 and has since raced in many series including GTWC, WEC and IMSA.
Despite initially lacking some performance, the Mustang has since become a regular competitor at the front, having taken a handful of wins and podiums.
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