Porsche’s hold on the 2025 ADAC Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie season was finally broken as the #6 Haupt Racing Team Ford Mustang GT3 of Vincent Kolb and Frank Stippler won the 64th Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen on the Nordschleife. The race turned with about twenty minutes to go when the leading #3 Falken Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R crashed at Hohe Acht, handing the lead to the Mustang. #4 Falken Motorsports Porsche finished second, #48 BLACK FALCON Team EAE Porsche third.

Porsche leads early, Mustang muscles in

From the start, Falken’s teal Porsches controlled the pace after an early bobble for pole-sitter Alex Fontana. Piloting the #44 Car Collection Porsche 911 GT3R, the Swiss ran slightly wide at Hatzenbach, losing momentum and letting the #3 and #4 Falkens through. A few laps later, Tim Heinemann sprinted out of a Code 60 zone quicker than Joel Sturm, taking the lead and slowly opening a gap. Behind, the Mustang kept the two Porsches in sight, but held its distance.
Coming out of the pits in the second hour, Heinemann was back in third due to a different pit strategy. While dicing for second with Frank Stippler in the HRT Mustang, Heinemann was pushed wide onto the gravel and had to gather it up. Soon after, the #4 Falken Porsche suffered a left-rear puncture, ending a captivating duel between Heinemann and Stippler. The long limp back cost more than two minutes and shuffled it down the order. That left the #3 Falken Porsche free of pressure at the front, with the HRT Mustang now the main threat.

Falken puncture keeps the Mustang in play

When the #3 Falken Porsche suffered a puncture near its second stop, both Joel Sturm and Stippler pitted together with the Mustang arriving first. 

After the mid-race stops, Vincent Kolb rejoined ahead with roughly eleven seconds in hand, leaving the #3 Falken Porsche crew with work to do. Julien Andlauer attacked immediately, stringing together a fierce out-lap and a clean run through traffic to whittle the gap down with each sector. By midway through the penultimate stint he had the Mustang in sight, set it up across Ex-Mühle and made the decisive move under brakes into Bergwerk to put the Falken Porsche back into the lead.

Hohe Acht decides it

From there, Andlauer looked unbeatable. Although Kolb was gaining pace, the #3 Falken Porsche had the race in its hands — until Hohe Acht. Turning in, Andlauer just kissed the strip of astroturf, the car snapped sideways and slammed the guard rail. The Porsche came to a stop and the win vanished on the spot.

The #6 HRT Ford Mustang GT3 of Vincent Kolb and Frank Stippler controlled the closing phase after the late retirement of the lead Falken car and sealed Mustang’s first Nordschleife win. Benny Leuchter steered the #4 Falken Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R home in second after a strong recovery drive of the GT3 debutant and co-driver Heinemann, while Mustafa Mehmet Kaya, Mike Stursberg and Ben Bünnnagel in the #48 BLACK FALCON Team EAE Porsche 911 GT3 R delivered a clean run to take third overall and the SP9 Am victory. Fourth went to the #8 JUTA RACING Audi R8 LMS GT3, which also won SP9 Pro-Am with Stippler completing a standout double on the day. The #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO rounded out the top five with solid pace and tidy execution, while pole-sitter Alex Fontana and Artur Goroyan finished sixth in the #44 Car Collection Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Class action

Like the day before, the #948 48 LOSCH Motorsport by BLACK FALCON managed the Cup2 class for Porsche 911 GT3 Cups superbly, taking the win with seventh plave overall. Tobias Müller, Noah Nagelsdiek and Carlos Rivas were on fire again, fighting a fierce battle with the #921 Mühlner Motorsport of Tim Scheerbarth, Arne Hoffmeister and David Jahn which only eased towards the end.

Equally exciting, but here taking the fight all the way to the flag, the BMW M240i Cup delivered a classic Nordschleife finish. Running nose to tail onto Döttinger Höhe, Drew Russel aboard the #667 Breakell Racing sat in the wake of John van der Sanden’s #680 PTerting Sports by Up2Race, timed the pull-out perfectly and slipstreamed past into Tiergarten to snatch the win by 0.584 seconds on the line.

Klaus Abbelen signs off with Driver of the Race

In his final GT3 start on the Nordschleife, Klaus Abbelen charged the #21 Frikadelli Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 from a P20 start into the thick of the SP9 Am podium fight, mixing tidy traffic work with steady pace. A late issue at Steilstrecke stopped the car short of a fairytale finish, but his run, and the way he went about it, earned him the event’s Driver of the Race award.

Final stretch

After a season of Porsche pace, the spell broke: Mustang is now a race winner on the Nordschleife. Momentum shifts as we head into the final two rounds, starting with NLS9, the 57. ADAC Barbarossapreis, in two weeks.

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