Comtoyou's No.007 Aston Martin wins at the Nürburgring from pole, as Mann-Filter trio are crowned GTWC EU Endurance champions in historic fashion

Credit: SRO/JEP

Comtoyou Racing managed to convert pole to win at the Nürburgring, as an eventful race gave the team its second 2026 win, whilst Maro Engel, Lucas Auer and Luca Stolz were crowned Endurance Cup champions in the penultimate event, courtesy of a fourth place finish.

As it happened Marco Sørensen, taking the start in the pole-sitting No.007 Comtoyou Aston Martin retained the lead at the start, despite Maxime Martin and Bastian Buus in the No.17 Team GetSpeed Mercedes and No.80 Lionspeed GP Porsche respectively trying their best to get by.

Meanwhile the race's first retirement came courtesy of Eastalent Racing's No.84 Audi entry, driven by Markus Winkelhock, with the German spun round at the first corner and then hit.

The top five held place in the opening phase of the race, with interest being found in the battle between Maro Engel in the No.48 Mann-Filter Mercedes and Jordan Pepper in the No.32 Team WRT BMW for sixth.

The South African briefly got by the Endurance championship leader in the first laps, with Engel fighting back and regaining sixth, before the BMW driver fought his way back in front of the Mercedes, with Alex Aka also getting involved in the action, driving the No.99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi.

In total, the biggest movers in these first laps were Arjun Maini, who managed to get from 16th to ninth in the No.64 HRT Ford, Eduardo Coseteng in the sister No.65 Silver entry that went from 25th to 18th, as well as Matias Zagazeta, who gained ten places in the No.52 AF Corse Ferrari, going from 46th to 36th.

On lap 11, Max Lynn in the No.23 Team RJN McLaren was spun round by the No.60 JMW Motorsport Ferrari of Thierry Vermuelen while fighting for 24th overall, with the latter being found guilty by the stewards, handing him a drive-through-penalty for the incident.

Meanwhile at the front, Sørensen retained his lead relatively comfortably from Martin and Buus, but failed to break off from them, with five seconds covering the top seven runners, entering the last part of their stint, as action throughout the field was regular and ofter spectacular.

On lap 23 Pepper moved up to fifth with a daring move under braking on Dani Juncadella's No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes, whilst at the same moment, Maini's move on Gold leader Aka for eighth proved just the moment Nico Menzel had asked for in his No.10 Boutsen VDS Porsche, with the German pouncing by the Audi, to gain a place and the Gold cup lead.

Come the end of lap 26, Buus entered the pits in the No.80 Porsche, with an undercut attempt being obvious, with a couple of more cars also doing the same throughout the field, with Ricardo Feller taking over the reigns in the Porsche.

Moments later a Full Course Yellow was needed though, as Tommy Pintos was left stranded at turn 13 inside his No.44 Greystone GT McLaren, after contact with the No.12 GetSpeed Mercedes of Gabriel Rindone. This effectively threw a wrench in Lionspeed GP's plans, with effectively all front runners pitting under the ensuing FCY turned into Safety Car period.

After the first round of mandatory pit-stops and driver changes were completed, the order inside the top five was unchanged, as Drudi took over from Sørensen, in the leading Aston Martin, Maximilian Götz was in second, replacing Martin and Dean McDonald now in third, getting handed the seat of the No.59 Garage 59 McLaren from Joseph Loake.

Charles Weerts followed in fourth, now driving the No.32 BMW, whilst Chris Lulham was fifth in the No.3 Mercedes and Luca Stolz in sixth, with his No.48 Mercedes now only two places away from being crowned Endurance champions.

At the end of lap 31 action resumed, with a battle for the Gold Cup lead between Robin Knutsson (No.10 Porsche), Andrea Frassineti (No.99 Audi) and Louis Prette (No.58 McLaren) amongst the most interesting ones, with Silver leader Amaury Cordeel in the No.30 BMW just behind the trio in 11th. Frasinetti proceeded to get past Knuttson and into the Gold lead shortly after.

Around ten minutes later though another intervention to the racing was needed, as the Safety car was straight-away called, as both the No.97 Rutronik Racing Porsche of Ricardo Pera and the No.45 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari of David Perel were seen beached in turn five after a collision.

Replays showed that Pera was touched from behind by the No.12 Mercedes of Ojeda, lost control and then veered straight into the unlucky Perel, with this being the second incident of the day to feature the No.12 GetSpeed Mercedes.

When the race restarted trouble befell Prette and his McLaren, with him rapidly losing positions for two laps before pitting with obvious trouble, alongside the No.54 Dinamic GT Porsche that also had left rear damage, with bodyword rubbing onto the tyre, after contact with the No.4 Optimum Motorsport McLaren.

Another Optimum McLaren would be the cause of a second FCY turned into Safety car though, as shortly after the sister car entered the pits, the No.5 car, in the hands of Guilherme Oliveira lost his left rear tyre, continuing to drive with three wheels, trying to get back into the pits.

This attempt proved dangerous and fruitless nonetheless, as he lost drive at the upwards braking zone for the final chinace, stopping in a precarious place, with Jayden Kelly being unfortunate to run into the McLaren with his No.44 Greystone GT McLaren, getting his right-front end very much damaged, with debris all over the place.

With just over 70 minutes to go, racing resumed, with the pit-lane preparing for the upcoming myriad of mandatory pit-stops and driver changes, with Drudi still leading Götz, McDonald, Weerts and Lulham.

The No.12 GetSpeed Mercedes' journey was over just as it was hit with a drive-through-penalty after collisions with the No.991 BMW and the No.91 Herberth Porsche, with the latter leaving damage to the left-rear of the car which proved insurmountable.

Garage 59 were the first team amongst the leaders to pit for the second and final time, trying to get a potential undercut, with McDonald handing over the No.59 McLaren to Marvin Kirchöfer, with the rest of the top five pitting shortly afterwards.

Despite Kirchöfer's best try, with him gaining a position on the No.17 GetSpeed Mercedes, he ended up just behind the leading Aston Martin of (now) Nicki Thiim, with a thrilling battle for the win looming on the horizon with less than an hour to go.

The No.17 Mercedes was the biggest loser from the pit-stop cycle, as it fell down to sixth place, losing out to the No.32 BMW, the No.3 Mercedes and the No.48 Mercedes, which ran longer than the rest of the leading pack.

Another change from that second pit-stop sequence was the No.10 Porsche regaining the Gold Cup lead over the No.99 Audi, before a short FCY was called with around 50 minutes to go, as the No.555 CSA McLaren of Romain Andriolo off and beached at turn 12 after a momentary control loss.

Action resumed with 45 minutes to go, with Thiim still as the net race leader, ahead of Kirchöfer, and Kelvin van der Linde, with the three on-track leaders, them being the No.54 Dinamic GT Porsche of Tanart Sathienthirakul in Silver and then the No.98 ROWE Racing BMW of Raffaele Marciello and No.2 Boutsen VDS Porsche of Dorian Boccolacci still needing to pit once more, now praying for another SC intervention to have a chance at glory.

With less than 30 minutes to go and with Thiim having a buffer of one and a half seconds to Kirchöfer, attention turned to a pretty good and hard-fought battle for the Gold Cup lead, with Dylan Pereira regaining the lead for Tresor Attempto Racing, getting past Gilles Magnus' Porsche.

Around the same time, the Silver class battle was not far off getting hot, with Ignacio Montenegro's lead in the No.30 BMW threatened by Niklas Kalus in the No.65 Ford, with only the No.80 Porsche of Thomas Preining standing between them, the trio being in 14th, 15th and 16th overall.

Kalus soon found his way past the Porsche and set about pressuring the Argentine driver, trying to secure the class win for HRT Ford, with the German managing to do so eventually, with less than ten minutes to go.

That's not to say things upfront had died down, as only two seconds seperated (effective) third-place man Van der Linde, Gounon (No.3 Mercedes), Auer (No.48 Mercedes), Fabian Schiller (No.17 Mercedes) and Fabio Scherer (No.64 Ford), all basically fighting amongst each other for the last podium place.

Soon though this turned into a battle for a potential second place, as the No.59 McLaren of Kirchöfer, was handed a ten-second time penalty for a FCY infringement, meaning Nicki Thiim in the lead only had to basically drive home and secure Comtoyou's second win of the season, after the Paul Ricard opener.

Drive it home he did Nicki Thiim, after three hard-fought and faultless hours for Comtoyou Racing as a team, with the No.007 Aston Martin crossing the line to win for the second time in 2026, with Kirchöfer and Boccolacci crossing in second and third, only momentarily however, as penalties for both meant that Kelvin van der Linde in the No.32 Team WRT BMW was in official second place, with the No.3 Verstappen Mercedes of Jules Gounon in third.

However celebrations occured not only on the Aston Martin garage, as a fourth place finish for Lucas Auer in the No.48 Mann-Filter Mercedes, meant that their drivers were officially crowned as 2026 GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup champions, with the driver's title being decided prior to the last race for the very first time, with the trio having yet to win a single race this year.

Gold honours went to the No.99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi, with HRT Ford winning in Silver thanks to the No.65's efforts, with the Bronze cup win going to the No.222 2seas Mercedes, even after a tough start to the race.

These race results meant that alongside the overall driver's title, two more were decided, as Team WRT and Kessel Racing officially secured the team's title in Silver and Bronze respectively, with second place in Silver enough for the trio of Ignacio Montenegro, Amaury Cordeel and Matisse Lismont to also secure the Silver double, with the two single-seater converts celebrating their first GT title win.

Results of GTWC EU Nürburgring race - Top 10 overall

1st No.007 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin (Thiim, Drudi, Sørensen)

2nd No.32 Team WRT BMW (Van der Linde, Weerts, Pepper)

3rd No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes (Juncadella, Gounon, Lulham)

4th No.48 Mann-Filter Mercedes (Auer, Stolz, Engel) - Endurance Cup Champions

5th No.17 Team GetSpeed Mercedes (Martin, Schiller, Götz)

6th No.64 HRT Ford (Maini, Scherer, Drouet)

7th No.99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi (Pereira, Aka, Frassineti) - Gold winners

8th No.10 Boutsen VDS Porsche (Menzel, Knutsson, Magnus)

9th No.46 Team WRT BMW (Rossi, Harper, Hesse)

10th No.59 Garage 59 McLaren (MacDonald, Kirchhöfer, Loake)