Endurance Weekly: April 23rd-30th

DIVEBOMB Endurance Team
Apr 30
7 min read

Written by the DIVEBOMB Endurance Team, Edited by Gabriel Tsui

This week on Endurance Weekly, the DIVEBOMB endurance team takes a look ahead to the opening round of the GTWC EU (GT World Challenge EU)Sprint Cup and the upcoming ELMS race in Paul Ricard. We also look back on the second race of the NLS (Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie) and discuss all of the breaking news stories from the past week.

NLS 2 - Review

Read the full race report here.

Falken Motorsports carried their momentum from NLS 1 into the second round of the all-Nürburgring series. The two blue Porsches were 1-2 for the majority of the race, but a slow stop for the No.4 put it back to fifth place. The No.3 had no such troubles, taking it’s maiden win of the season.

The No.34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin was the victim of a 37 second penalty, for breaching the minimum pitstop time. Christian Krognes pushed the car to its limit in the final few laps, he caught up and took the lead on the final lap, a position he would concede when the penalty was applied. However, his pace at the end of the race allowed the No.34 to keep second place, a strong result for the Walkenhorst team.

The only BMW M4 GT3 car in the race was the ROWE Racing No.98 car. Although there were moments where its pace didn’t seem strong, the car stayed out of trouble and finished on the final step of the podium. Third place didn’t come easily though, as BMW pilot, Raffaele Marciello, had to fight the No.16 Scherer Sport Porsche following the final pitstop. Once Marciello had cleared the No.16, he chased down the leaders in an attempt to get within 37 seconds of the No.34 Aston Martin, but his attempts were unsuccessful.

Although the Porsche was the car of the day, Frank Stippler was the driver of the day. Off the back of an incredible last to first win in the Goodwood Members Meeting two weeks ago, Stippler didn’t hang around adapting from classic to modern race cars. The German driver took pole in qualifying, then fought hard in his first stint to maintain his lead against the Falken Motorsport cars.

At the end of the race, Stippler jumped into the No.2 Ford Mustang, recovering to an eighth place finish, behind the No.8 Audi he started in. While finishing seventh and eighth doesn’t sound like any massive accolade, neither of the cars had competitive pace, but Stippler outperformed the machinery he was working with. His ability to drive two completely different cars in the same race should not be overlooked.

Racing will resume on the Nürburgring for the third NLS race on the 10th May 2025.

GTWC EU Brands Hatch - Preview

The second round of the GTWC EU season starts at 11:00 BST (10:00 GMT) on Sunday for race one. The race will be a one hour sprint race, with a single driver change per car. The second race will take place at 15:45, with an identical format to the first. Qualifying will take place as two separate sessions on Saturday, the first will set the grid for race one, and the second will set the grid for race two.

The championship is split into a Sprint and Endurance Series, each with a driver and manufacturers championship, then there is an overall championship which combines both. Although the race in Brands Hatch is the second race this year, it marks the first Sprint weekend of the season.

There are multiple classes in the series: Pro, Gold, Silver and Bronze, as classes are decided on the drivers ratings. The Pro class has no restriction, but gold cars have one gold and one silver driver. Cars in the silver class may only be driven by silver-rated drivers, while bronze cars must be driven by one bronze driver and another from any rating.

The race in Brands Hatch will host 30 cars, 13 of which will be pro entries, six gold entries, 11 silver entries and no bronze entries. Headlining the pro class, reigning champions, Lucas Auer and Maro Engel will compete in the Mamba liveried Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO.

The cars will race on the 3.9 km GP track, with nine corners, and significant elevation changes. The road drops 11 metres in turn one, before climbing 12 metres back up to the Druids hairpin of turn two. The track is one of the biggest challenges on the calendar for the drivers.

The weather forecast for the weekend is surprisingly good for British weather, both days of the weekend are sunny, with highs of 18 degrees celsius, so no weather interruptions are expected.

Last year race one was won by Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts in the No.32 WRT BMW M4 GT3 and race two was won by the No.48 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 EVO driven by Maro Engel and Lucas Auer. Both Mercedes and BMW looked strong in the previous race in Paul Ricard, finishing first and fourth respectively. This sets the two manufacturers favourite to win this weekend, as well as Porsche, who had two cars on the podium in Paul Ricard.

All the action can be watched from on the GT World YouTube channel, free of charge.

ELMS Paul Ricard - Preview

The European Le Mans series (ELMS) field will take to the famous Circuit Paul Ricard in southern France this weekend for the second round of the 2025 season. The 44 car field will barrel down towards the turn one left hander at 12pm local time on Sunday, the 4th of May.

The starting order will be set by a series of qualifying sessions starting at 2:20pm the day beforehand, with multiple practice sessions taking place across Friday and Saturday.

Weather forecasters predict no rain all weekend at the 5.7km (3.5 mile) circuit, with the highest temperatures around 20-21 degrees celsius in partly cloudy conditions.

The race will feature the usual four classes; LMP2, LMP2 PRO/AM, LMP3 and LMGT3, with traffic management being crucial for all classes across the four hour event.

In LMP2, it will be the No.18 IDEC Sport car backed by Genesis Magma Racing who will be looking to go back-to-back to start the season as Jamie Chadwick, Daniel Juncadella and Mathys Jaubert hope to continue their good form into the rest of the season.

That won’t be easy for them however, with 12 other cars in their competitive class looking to take their first victory of the season. Names such as; Théo Pourchaire, Tom Blomqvist, Nick Yelloly and Pietro Fittipaldi, among many others, will be looking to have their own taste of glory in Le Castellet.

Despite being the premier class, the overall winner didn’t come from LMP2 in Barcelona, it came from LMP2 PRO/AM and the No.83 AF Corse crew. Nicklas Nielsen, Matthieu Vaxivière and François Perrodo - of course - took victory in their own class as well as overall at the 4 Hours of Barcelona.

In a class that combines well established talent with rising stars, that is much easier said than done. Drivers such as Dane Cameron, Oliver Caldwell or Giorgio Roda - who has taken pole in 12 of his last 13 LMP2 qualifying sessions - will be aiming to take victory in southern France.

10 LMP3 cars will also take to the track, with the No.17 CLX Motorsport Ligier of Paul Lanchere, Adrien Closmenil and Theodor Jensen coming off the back of a win in Spain.

Similarly to the premier LMP2 class, LMGT3 will feature 13 competitors. The No.85 Iron Dames Porsche of Michelle Gatting, Sarah Bovy and Célia Martin won last time out in dominant fashion. They will be hoping to keep up their domination, but with six manufacturers present on the grid, the task set before them is daunting.

Also in LMGT3, Ferrari factory Hypercar driver James Calado will race in the ELMS for the first time in almost a decade for the No.57 Kessel Racing Ferrari. Calado will step in for Daniel Serra, who is unable to compete due to his commitments in the Brazilian Stock Car Pro series.

You can watch qualifying and the race live on the official ELMS YouTube channel for free.

Breaking News

WEC

Porsche announce Wehrlein and Mueller for Spa - Read the full report here

Reigning Formula E champion Pascal Wehrlein will join Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre in the No.6 Porsche Penske 963 for the upcoming WEC round at Spa, in preparation for his first run with the Penske team at Le Mans in June.

Reserve driver for Le Mans, Nico Mueller, will also join the No.5 crew alongside Michael Christensen and Julian Andlauer.

Both drivers will hope to aid a Porsche Penske comeback after a rough start to the season for the German marque in their first races for the team.

Yuichi Nakayama joins No.78 Lexus crew in Spa

Yuichi Nakayama will race the No.78 Akkodis ASP Lexus squad in place of the injured Ben Barnicoat at the 6 Hours of Spa.

Barnicoat has been sidelined since March with injuries due to a mountain biking incident. The injuries caused him to also miss the recent Imola race, where he was replaced by Esteban Masson.

Nakayama brings much experience to the No.78 squad, having raced in Japan’s SuperGT series for eight years, while also competing in GTWC and NLS this year.

IMSA

Darren Turner subs into No.27 Heart of Racing lineup for Laguna Seca

Three-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Darren Turner will replace Tom Gamble in the No.27 Heart of Racing GTD Aston Martin, as Gamble competes in the WEC round at Spa during the same weekend.

Turner will make his first IMSA start alongside Casper Stevenson at Laguna Seca since he won the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 2023 with the same team. He also competes with Heart of Racing in the GTWC America series.

NLS

Scherer Sport PHX make partial switch to Porsche machinery

Reigning Nürburgring 24 Hour champions, Scherer Sport PHX, have made a partial switch to Porsche machinery, following Audi’s departure from sportscar racing to focus on its Formula One project.

Having been a long-time Audi customer, the team began their move over to the Porsche camp at last weekend's NLS 2 race, running the same No.15 Audi R8 they did in NLS 1 alongside the new No.16 Porsche.

The team plan to enter both cars into this year's edition of the N24, chasing their second win in the same number of years.