It was announced at the end of last year that the VLN would have a new name in 2020. The rather clumsy title “Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring” would be changed to the simpler “Nürburgring Langstrecken Serie”, and the first round of the series was originally scheduled for 21st March.
The Coronavirus pandemic meant that we had a lot longer to get used to calling it NLS rather than VLN, but importantly, it is only a change in name – as the preface to the regulations explains, this is “the biggest and most popular grassroots racing series worldwide and has been organised at the legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife since 1977”.
It was Creventic that got the “real racing” ball rolling in Portimão two weeks earlier with an admittedly sparse entry for their 24-hour race, and without detracting from the Dutch organiser’s efforts, it has to be said that events in Germany at the weekend were on an entirely different scale and provided an altogether more exciting spectacle.
One hundred and thirty-two cars eventually took the start for the 51st Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy as the NLS sprang into action, unfortunately without a soul to be seen in the grandstand opposite the pits, or in fact anywhere around the circuit. Remember, this is only another step towards “real racing” – we have a way to go yet. It is important – to me at least – that motor-racing remains a spectator sport. Having on-board cameras and slow-motion replays of spectacular incidents may bring it into the living room of the casual observer, but allowing the dyed-in-the-wool fan to get up close, to get autographs, and to feel the noise is vital.
What mattered most though, was that this was an excellent race. The entry in GT3 was strong, with Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche and Ferrari all being represented with genuine podium-scoring chances. The spectator enclosures may have been empty, but the track, as ever, was busy, and to make good lap times meant being sharp in the traffic – a skill on the Nordschleife as much now as always.
In the end, it came down to a race between just two cars – the #34 Walkenhorst BMW M6 and the #6 Team HRT AutoArena Mercedes AMG. More could easily have been involved – GetSpeed’s Mercedes, the Phoenix Audi R8, the Ferrari from Octane; they could all claim to have had the pace, but all dropped back. It is a sign of the strength of the series, that even in its opening round, there was enough interest in the leading two cars to keep the attention, helped by the different strategies being played out.
Team HRT (Haupt Racing Team) may be a new name, but it is hardly more than a renaming of the former Black Falcon team. Black Falcon may have withdrawn from the GT3 class, but the people remain, now under Hubert Haupt’s title and there should be no doubt that these people know what they are doing in the VLN, er, I mean the NLS. It was a long time since VLN-9 of 2019, but most people knew that Assenheimer and Engel were winners last time out.
In the Walkenhorst BMW, David Pittard made an energetic start and drove a spirited first stint in the initially damp conditions, before handing the car over to Dane Mikkel Jensen at the first stop. Patrick Assenheimer started the HRT Mercedes and went for a double stint, completing eight laps in the second shift compared to Jensen’s seven in the BMW. This meant that the Mercedes’ second pit stop would have to be longer than that of the BMW, but the idea (and it made sense to me) was that the time lost would be made up by having a shorter final pit stop, as there is more to be gained in the minimum pit stop time in the last 70 minutes of the race.
If you are not familiar with the normal pit stop arrangements at long-distance races on the Nordschleife, then it is best if you stop here and go and look up some descriptions of the changes that were implemented to deal with the requirements for social distancing. Instead of the normal pit lane, competitors had to wind their way through a series of cones and concrete blocks that had been set up in the paddock to allow each car to have its own working area. Refuelling would be done separately, in the normal pit lane. It all meant that pit stops would take far longer than normal, and the famous “Appendix 6”, which specifies the minimum pit stop times depending on the number of laps completed in the preceding stint was adjusted accordingly.
The pit stop time is measured from pit in to pit out, and it is the team’s responsibility to get it right. Driver and tyre changes were to happen in the team’s working area, before the car could be released to the refuelling area, where it might have to be held for a while longer, to ensure the minimum stop time was adhered to.
In Creventic’s 24h Series, the refuelling is always done in a separate area as well, but they do not use minimum pit stop times, so it is not a problem for competitors in that series. And with the long and winding road through the Nürburgring paddock, no-one had any previous data to rely on, new team or not. So there was quite a bit of learning going on during the race, trying to fine-tune the pit stop time to perfection.
Maro Engel, in the Haupt Mercedes, seemed to have a slight pace advantage over Jensen in the Playstation-sponsored BMW, but with Pittard getting back in for the final stint, it would still be a close-run thing. The other factor was the strategy: since Assenheimer had gone longer in the first half of the race, it meant that Engel’s final stop would be later – and therefore shorter – than the Walkenhorst stop to switch from Jensen to Pittard.
Sure enough, Mikkel Jensen brought the BMW in from the lead, at the end of 22 laps, David Pittard got in, and the car was underway again after a pit stop of 4m 50.068s (four seconds over the minimum time allowed). Engel pitted at the end of the next lap, by which time the minimum pit stop time had gone down to 4m 22s, but the Mercedes pit stop was 4m 19.879s, just over two seconds under the minimum. The previous two pit stops for HRT had both been almost five seconds slower than the minimum, whereas Walkenhorst were five and three seconds over the minimum on their first two stops. Small margins, yes, but important enough to chase.
Regulation 7.3.18 states that in the last 70 minutes of the race, stop and go penalties are converted into a time penalty of 35 seconds plus the amount of shortfall on the minimum pit stop time. Hence, as the race reached its nail-biting conclusion, news filtered through that a 37-second time penalty would be applied to the HRT car. Maro Engel overtook David Pittard for the lead on the road on lap 25 and then set the fastest lap of the race on lap 26. But time was running out, and when the chequered flag was shown at the end of lap 27 the gap between the Mercedes and the BMW was just ten seconds, which meant that the BMW was awarded the win after the application of the 37-second penalty to the Mercedes. Disappointment for the Haupt Racing Team, joy for Walkenhorst Motorsport, and a thrilling encounter for the impartial observer.
Behind these two were more great battles: unfortunately, contact for the Phoenix Audi being driven by Michele Beretta dropped it down the order but a stirring drive from Fabian Schiller in the GetSpeed Mercedes enabled him to take third place on the last lap from René Rast in the Car Collection Audi.
But even all that only really scratches the surface of the race. As always, there were classes to be won and intense racing all the way down the field. It’s what proper racing (“real racing”) is all about! In two weeks’ time we have a double-header, with NLS-2 taking place on the Saturday, and NLS-3 on the Sunday. Now that will be intense!
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