A milestone for the BMW Junior team at the Nürburgring: Daniel Harper (20), Max Hesse (19) and Neil Verhagen (20) took their first victory in the Nürburgring Endurance Series in the BMW M6 GT3. In the 52nd Adenauer Rundstrecken Trophy, the fourth NLS race of the season, the trio crossed the finish line in first place after 28 laps. With an average age of 19.6, the BMW Junior team is the youngest winning team in the history of the race series. Second place went to Vincent Kolb and Frank Stippler in the Audi R8 LMS from Phoenix-Racing. The Lamborghini GT3 Evo from Konrad-Motorsport was piloted by Axcil Jefferies and Michele Di Martino in third place.

The BMW Junior team already performed well in qualifying. Daniel Harper set the second fastest time: 7:52.691 minutes. The pole position was secured by Patric Niederhauser in the Audi R8 LMS from Lionspeed by Car Collection Motorsport. The Swiss set a new qualifying besttime with 7:52.374 minutes. Official records for the series can only be set in the race. It was Niederhauser who dominated the first third of the race. His fellow competitors Rocco Lorenzo, Patrick Kolb and Milan Dontje could not keep up with the speed in the further course. In the end, the quartet was classified in seventh place. The Konrad duo took the lead for a while until a puncture put the brakes on Jefferies and Di Martino for the time being. On lap 16, Harper in the Junior BMW took the lead and did not relinquish it until the finish.

"Our first NLS win feels great," said Hesse. "We have had solid speed in previous races but it has gone unrewarded. The only downer is that 'Gustel' wasn't there today." Experienced BMW works driver Augusto Farfus is one of the team's mentors and has contested all races alongside the three youngsters so far. Hesse continued: "We owe him a lot and have learned an incredible amount from him. Now our goal is to just keep going. We still have a few races on the schedule and want to keep improving."

Phoenix duo Kolb/Stippler were not unhappy with second place. "Even though some top cars were missing today, in the end it doesn't matter if you are fighting against six or 20 strong opponents," said Stippler. "Especially in the early stages, the power density was enormous and I had to make quite an effort to stay in front." Kolb, who took over the cockpit of the Audi R8 LMS in the second half of the race, added: "I already saw during Stippler's stints where the BMW had advantages and we had disadvantages. They simply had a bit more speed out of the corners. My stint was anything but easy and I'm very happy with second place."

Satisfied with the second podium finish in Konrad-Motorsport's Lamborghini era were Jefferies and Di Martino. "I hope the knot has finally broken," said Di Martino. "We've had a really strong performance for a few races now, which unfortunately wasn't reflected in the results," Di Martino said. "And also today we had a puncture - so I have mixed feelings. In the end, though, the joy of third place outweighs the disappointment.

"The race debut of the BMW M4 GT3 had to be postponed. The planned participation of the new race car in the fourth NLS race had to be cancelled at short notice. In an accident during the final phase of the test and set-up runs on Friday evening, the car was so damaged that it could not be repaired overnight. The cause of the accident is currently being analysed in detail by BMW M Motorsport.