René Rast has already won a number of valuable races and titles in his long motorsport career. On Saturday, he was finally able to fill a gap in his trophy cabinet. The three-time DTM champion won the 45th RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen together with Jakub "Kuba" Giermaziak. For both the Audi factory driver and the Pole, it was the first overall victory in a race of the Nürburgring Endurance Series (NLS). In the process, the Scherer Sport Team Phoenix driver in the Audi R8 LMS GT3 had to work hard, particularly in the final 30 minutes of NLS3. 
"Of course I had hoped that we would win. We had to fight hard for it, especially in the last two stints. It was a lot of fun for me. The BMW was extremely strong. Every victory, no matter in which race series, is valuable. Today's one is very important to me," said Rast.

Christian Krognes was constantly breathing down his neck in the BMW M4 GT3 from Walkenhorst Motorsport. The Norwegian tried everything, once coming close to passing Rast when he attacked him on the outside at the height of the Bilstein corner, but ultimately traffic on the track prevented further promising moments. In the end, Krognes and teammate Sami-Matti Trogen were 4.673 seconds off the winning Audi R8 LMS GT3. "That was a close race. There was always a small gap but I couldn't close it. I did my best but René was very fast. We had changed a little bit on the setup of the car, that made the car a little bit more difficult to control. But, we had to try something to still be able to overtake him," said Krognes. Despite his best result in the NLS so far, Trogen, who comes from sim racing, also seemed a little disappointed: "We had the opportunity to win. The differences between real and virtual racing are marginal. Second place is a solid result."

All-around, the day was a success for team boss Ernst Moser: Frank Stippler and Vincent Kolb finished third for the Audi crew with a gap of 2:20.775 minutes. "My start was good, I had a good duel with 'Uncle' Stolz. In the lead, I handed over to Vincent and he did a good job, even though he had recently been sick with Corona. It was unclear whether he would be able to keep up the stints. So P3 was the optimum and we are overjoyed. Congratulations to the sister car, this is a great result for Phoenix," said Frank Stippler and Kolb added: "My first stint was a bit sloppy, I lost some time. In the last stint I was able to get some time back. I've now had ten days of Corona. That's why I'm satisfied on the whole."

Hubert Haupt unlucky, puncture in promising position
For a long time it looked like a three-way battle between Audi, BMW and Mercedes-AMG. But 77 minutes before the end Hubert Haupt had to park his Mercedes-AMG GT3 in third position with a puncture on the left rear at the Döttinger Höhe. Together with Luca Stolz, the team boss of the Haupt Racing Team had at times even been at the front of the large field on the legendary Nordschleife. A whole Mercedes armada just missed the podium. Luca-Sandro Trefz, Patrick Assenheimer and the young Swiss Julien Apotheloz, who drove very spiritedly, especially in the first part of the race, secured fourth place for Landgraf Motorsport ahead of the two Schnitzelalm Racing teams Marcel Marchewicz and Miklas Born as well as Carrie Schreiner and Peter Terting. The performance of US American Janine Shoffner and her partner Moritz Kranz was again strong. The duo won again in the SP9 Am class in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Team GetSpeed at the NLS comeback despite adverse conditions. Due to a yellow offense in qualifying, they had to start from the last position of the group. "I missed the Nordschleife, it's nice to be back here. And then to be able to take a class win again directly, that feels great," said Shoffner.

Class victory in CupX for birthday boy Felix von der Laden
In the Porsche Endurance Trophy Nürburgring Cup2, Team Black Falcon repeated its class win from NLS2 with the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992) and drivers Tobias Müller and Paul Harkema. In Cup3, Jens Moetefindt, Moritz Oberheim and Thorsten Wolter of Team FK-Performance Motorsport took advantage of technical problems experienced by the winners of the first two races, Mauro Calamia, Ivan Jacoma and Kai Riemer, to score their first success of the season. The trio from Schmickler Performance powered by Ravenol only finished sixth this time. Janis Waldow also celebrated a class win with Max Lamesch and Andreas Patzelt in the debut of Waldow Performance with the Mercedes-AMG GT4 in SP10. Felix von der Laden gave himself a present on his 28th birthday: first place in the CupX class together with Georg Griesemann, Maik Rönnefarth and Yves Volte in the KTM X-Bow GTX from Teichmann Racing.

Adrenalin trio leads the championship
Leading the championship after three races are Oskar Sandberg, Sindre Setsaas and Daniel Zils, who celebrated their third victory in the VT2 class with rear- + all-wheel drive in the BMW 330i (G20) of Adrenalin Motorsport Team Alzner Automotive. Hot on their heels are two-time Cup2 winners Müller/Harkema (BLACK FALCON Team IDENTICA); third are JayMo Härtling and Michael Sander, who took one win and two second places in their class with Schnitzelalm Racing's BMW M240i Racing.

The NLS continues on July 9 with the ROWE 6h ADAC Ruhr Cup Race.