Verstappen, Juncadella, Gounon win NLS 2 in dominant fashion
- Aaron Carroll
- Mar 21
- 6 min read
The No.3 Winward Verstappen.com Mercedes driven by Max Verstappen, Daniel Juncadella and Jules Gounon has dominated NLS 3, finishing a minute ahead of the No.99 ROWE BMW and the No.44 Falken Porsche in second and third.
UPDATE: The No.3 Mercedes has since been disqualifed from the race, the No.99 ROWE BMW of Dan Harper and Jordan Pepper have been handed the victory. Read the full report here.
It was Max Verstappen in the No.3 Mercedes who took pole for NLS 2 in this morning's qualifying session, just under two seconds clear of the No.16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi and the No.98 ROWE BMW.
Verstappen - starting the pole sitting Mercedes - got away well, and held the lead as they headed onto the Nordschliefe for the first time. Haase in the Audi was giving chase closely, followed by David Pittard in the No.47 Mercedes, who started very well from sixth on the grid.
Augusto Farfus in the No.98 BMW fell to fourth, with the rest of the SP9s behind going three and four wide on the GP strecke fighting for positions.
Both start groups two and three also got away cleanly, as the leaders hit the Karussel for the first time.
Verstappen and Haase had pulled away a bit from the cars behind, the two still nose to tail. As they twisted their way through the final sector, Haase got a great run onto the Dottinger and pulled ahead into the lead.
The two were split by three tenths across the line, with a further three second back to Pittard. Then came Farfus, and the No.45 Ferrari closing out the top five at the end of lap one.
They all stayed single file on lap two, when they crossed the line Haase led Verstappen by 1.1 seconds, now a five second gap back to Pittard.
Four seconds back from that there was a massive battle for fourth place, with the No.48 Porsche of Tobias Müller finding it's way into fourth ahead of the No.98 BMW of Farfus.
Meanwhile halfway around lap three, Verstappen had closed the gap to Haase and was all over the back of the Audi. The two nearly had a massive crash at high speed through traffic as they slowed through a yellow flag zone.
Through that traffic, the gap went out ever so slightly once again. Verstappen lost a lot of time in traffic just before the Dottinger Höhe, Haase overtook the slower car just before the yellow zone, but the Formula One champion got caught out and had to slow big time. Due to the incident, the lead gap went out to 3.3 seconds.
Behind, Farfus had got ahead of Thomas Neubauer in the No.45, and was quickly reeling Pittard in for third place. He held on though, as Farfus fell back into the battle pack behind a lap later.
The BMW was fourth, with the No.48 Porsche and No.45 Ferrari making door-to-door contact behind them, allowing Dan Harper in the No.99 sister ROWE BMW to get involved too.
At the front, Verstappen had closed the gap to nearly nothing again. He tucked into the slipstream on the Dottinger Höhe, and down the pit straight, pulled to the outside for a move into turn one but Haase hit the breaks later and held on. Verstappen was practically bump drafting the Audi through Hatzenbach, but there was still no way past.
The No.47 Mercedes that was in third was the first to hit pit lane whilst that was going on, Pittard giving way to Nirei Fukuzumi. The No.99 BMW and No.34 Aston Martin also joined them on pit lane.
Haase got backed up ever so slightly just before the Dottinger Höhe, Verstappen got in the tow and made the move stick down into the chicane. Both however did pull into the pits at the end of that lap. The rest of the lead group pit on this lap too.
Daniel Juncadella took the wheel of the No.3, while Haase gave over to teammate Nico Hantke. The Scherer Sport Audi crew had a slightly quicker stop though, and re-took the lead of the race.
Juncadella made quick work of the silver driver though, a brave move on the inside of the Flugplatz getting the Mercedes back to the front of the field. He quickly opened up a six second gap to he cars behind. The No.47 Mercedes that pitted earlier was in second, from the No.99 ROWE car, which had both caught and passed Hantke in the Audi.
Jordan Pepper in the BMW made the move on Fukuzumi for second, with the gap to the leader staying around six seconds. Mattia Drudi in the No.34 Aston Martin was three second behind second and third, putting 10 seconds between himself and Hantke behind.
The No.98 BMW had an issue just a lap after their pit stop. The ROWE crew rolled it back into the garage, however there was not too much hectic movement from the mechanics.
That left the No.3 ahead from the No.99, which had brought the gap down to three seconds. Fukuzimi was a couple of seconds back and a further eight seconds back was Drudi in the Aston Martin. The trio were over 20 seconds ahead of the rest of the pack.
The lead gap grew out to almost 10 seconds on the next lap, with Fukuzumi looking to get on the back of Pepper for second place.
The No.65 Ford Mustang came into the pits with massive damage to it's rear bodywork. The rear bumper was almost completely torn apart, with many of the internals of the car exposed. They had been hit in the rear by another car.
With just over half the race left to go, the second round of pit stops got underway. Verstappen jumped out the car for the first time, to give way to Jules Gounon. The gap to Harper in the No.99 BMW was three tenths of a second, and the No.34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin was 20 seconds back from the pair.
Traffic played a role in the fight, as the BMW scythed past the Mercedes as they came onto the Grand Prix loop, but Gounon used the back markers to fight past again before the Nordschleife.
The fight was ended when the No.99 received a short penalty for bumping a back marker.
All eyes were on the battle between the No.81 BMW M3 Touring Car and the No.786 Lamborghini. The M3 was a concept joked about in an April Fool's joke, which came to fruition when BMW saw the fan's responses to the idea.
50 minutes from the end of the race, the No.99 came in for it's final stop, followed by the No.34 Aston Martin. A lap later, the No.3 Verstappen.com car pit, for Verstappen to jump back in for the final time.
There was a battle for fourth place with just over half an hour to go in the race. Tim Heinemann in the No.44 Falken Porsche led the No.34 Aston Martin of Christian Krognes, the No.48 Porsche of Dylan Pereira and the No.45 Ferrari of Theirry Vermeulen.
Pepper in the No.99 BMW took second place from Nico Hantke in the No.16 Audi, which slowly fell back into the battling cars behind. Heinemann made quick work of him into turn 1. The No.48 and No.45 were battling behind too, with the Porsche running the Ferrari out wide to keep the position.
Meanwhile, out front the F1 champion had extended the leading gap to over 50 seconds.
Hantke lost position to Pereira too on the next lap, slowly but surely creeping down the order. Vermeulen and Krognes soon followed through.
Ahead, Pepper in the second placed car had some small contact with a Porsche Cayman, but got away with no damage or significant time loss. Heinemann in the No.44 had dropped the battle for fourth, and was quickly catching the second placed BMW.
Onto the final lap the lead gap was over a minute, but the fight for second was just under a second. Pepper caught two slower cars in Hatzenbach, erasing any gap he had heading into the last lap.
It was Verstappen though who crossed the line to win NLS 2 in dominant fashion. The four-time F1 champion taking his second NLS win alongside Juncadella and Gounon.
Pepper held on for second in the No.99, with Heinemann just behind in third place. Fourth overall for the No.48 Porsche, which also won the Pro-Am class, then the No.45 Ferrari rounding out the top five.
Then came the No.34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin, No.16 Scherer Audi, No.7 Lamborghini, No.17 Porsche and the No.130 Lamborghini rounding out the top 10.
NLS returns in three weeks on the 11th of April for NLS 3.
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