2024 NLS(Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie) Round 1 Report

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The 2024 season of NLS (Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie) started on Saturday, April 6th, and the drivers who have been fascinated with the challenging race track in the forest of Eifel gathered again this year. The 2024 calendar consists of six rounds, and the first two rounds were doubleheaders, with two 4-hour races held on the same weekend.

When hearing the name Nürburgring, the first thing that comes to mind for many is probably the traditional 24-hour race. This year’s edition will be held from June 1st to 2nd, after having Qualifiers (the qualifying races) on April 13th and 14th. For the prospective participants of the around-the-clock race, these weekends of Qualifiers and the NLS’s season-opening doubleheader were crucial because the opportunities to drive around the Nordschleife are limited before the 24-hour race other than these race meetings.

Yokohama Tire supported the eventual NLS champion team last year but began a new partnership with Haupt Racing Team, one of Mercedes-AMG’s customer teams, in the 2024 season. Under the name of Team ADVAN x HRT, the team runs a Mercedes-AMG GT3 and competes in the SP9 Pro-Am class, in which professional drivers and gentleman drivers team up and drive FIA GT3 cars, the fastest machines in the field.

Haupt Racing Team was founded in July 2020 and has a relatively short history. However, they had already won a drivers’ championship in DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters or German Touring car Championship) and have a strong track record in the 24-hour races at Nürburgring and Spa-Francorchamps, etc. So, you can say it is an up-and-coming racing team. For this first race of the season, the team appointed a trio of drivers: Dennis Fetzer, a promising 22-year-old driver, Hubert Haupt, the team owner, and Ralf Aron, a 26-year-old with rich racing experiences, including those in single-seater categories. Their target was, of course, a win in the SP9 Pro-Am class.

The 90-minute official qualifying session started at 8:30 a.m. The sky over the circuit was slightly overcast, and the air temperature was 11 degrees centigrade. As some wet patches remained on the tarmac, Team ADVAN x HRT gave the grooved wet tires to its no.6 car, and Haupt, behind the wheel of it, went out to the track. His last timed lap before returning to the pit was the fastest in the class then, and he handed the car to Fetzer.

After a lap to check the track conditions, Fetzer returned to the pit box to switch to the slick tires. He then set a lap time below the 8’14” level and changed to Aron, to whom the team entrusted their qualifying attempt in the remaining 25 minutes. By setting 8’03″470, Aron secured the top slot in the SP9 Pro-Am class, which meant the no.6 car sat on the sixth grid overall for the race.

After the qualifying session, fans enjoyed entertaining events like Pit Walk or Grid Walk. The formation lap began at 11:43 a.m. toward the start of the 4-hour race at noon. The no.6 car joined the lap with Haupt at the wheel. By then, some patches of blue sky were seen above the grids, and the track surfaces were now totally dry. The field completed the formation lap, and the first race of the 2024 NLS season started with the growling exhaust sound when the marshal car left the track after leading them for a lap.

Haupt showed an incredible getaway from the left-hand side of the third row. He went through the center of the track to pass the top five qualifiers at a breath and cleared Turn 1 as the race leader. Even though he had warmed up his tires sufficiently during the formation lap, the ADVAN racing tires’ performance at the beginning of the race was quite impressive for the fans who have been waiting for the start of the NLS’s new season.

Haupt led through the opening lap and went on to Lap 2. However, he was investigated on suspicion of a jump start and was subsequently given a drive-through penalty, much to the team’s regret. It was kind of overeager, but Haupt rejoined the race after serving the penalty at the end of Lap 2 to make up for the mistake.

While he dropped to third in the SP9 Pro-Am class at the end of Lap 3, the gap with the second in the class, the no.7 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO I, was only 0.170 seconds, so regaining a position didn’t look too difficult. And Haupt came through, overtaking it on the next lap to move up to second.

The no.6 car returned to the pit after completing five laps from the race’s start to change to Fetzer. The young guy’s duty was to catch up with the class leader, the no.17 Aston Martin Vantage GT3. With the Aston Martin making a pit stop at the end of Lap 7, the gap between the no.6 and no.17 shrunk to 8.986 seconds when the former entered its tenth lap, recovering most of the loss from the drive-through penalty early in the race.

By setting 9’54″842 on Lap 10, Fetzer finally snatched the lead in the SP9 Pro-Am class from the no.17 car, which took 10’06″966 to complete the same lap. He went on to pull away from the rest of the class field lap after lap, and the no.6 car had a comfortable cushion against any threat from behind when the halfway point of the 4-hour race passed.

In the race’s second half, many FIA GT3 cars, including the no.6 car, came into their pit box at the end of Lap 14. Team ADVAN x HRT’s Mercedes AMG GT3, with Aron in the cockpit, now began to improve their overall position. From the ninth overall on Lap 16, he bettered it to eighth on the next lap and gained one more position on Lap 18. Although it was primarily a result of other cars’ pit stops, he once moved up to fifth overall at the end of Lap 22.

On that lap, the no.6 car made its final pit stop, but Aron stayed in the car for the stint to the end. He set the crew’s fastest lap, 8’03″666, on Lap 25 and secured the SP9 Pro-Am class victory after four hours of hard racing. The car finished the race in sixth overall, getting in fights with the SP9 Pro class competitors. It proved that the team was highly competitive, raising expectations for even better results in the coming rounds.