The first winners of the Digital Nürburgring Endurance Series presented by Goodyear in the season 22/23 are Moritz Löhner and Lucas Müller. Driving a Porsche 911 GT3 R from Dörr Esports, the duo finished the H&R 3h Race in first place after 3:01:17 hours and 23 laps in the virtual Green Hell. However, Löhner and Müller benefited from a spin in the last lap by the so far leading Alexi Elomaa, who shared the Walkenhorst BMW M4 GT3 with Sami-Matti Trogen. Shortly before the Brünnchen, Elomaa lost the rear of his GT3 car without any external interference. With a lot of effort, he was able to avoid an impact. In the end, a 2.5 second lead turned into an 11.53 second gap to first place. Elias Seppanen and Yohann Harth in the Mercedes AMG GT3 of the AMG Team HRT by Unicorns of Love completed the mix of brands on the DNLS podium in third place.
“That was an emotional rollercoaster,” admitted Müller, who drove his first race for Dörr Esports at the DNLS opening round. “I pushed hard in the last laps. But I couldn’t get any closer than 2.5 seconds to Alexi. I had already accepted second place when he suddenly spun in front of me. In the end, however, the victory was well deserved. We were very fast right from the start.”
Behind the top trio, four other Mercedes-AMG teams claimed positions four to seven: Mercedes-AMG Team Williams Esports (#55), AMG Team Urano (#91), Mercedes-AMG Team Williams Esports (#39) and Williams Esports Razer (#55). The top 10 positions were completed by BMW Team Valkyrie Exype 77, the second Urano-AMG with the #90 and the Team75 Bernhard by SimRC Porsche with drivers Dylan Pereira and Jamie Moone.
The team mates of the latter two – Marvin Strehl and Jürgen Frank – took the opening victory in Cup2 for the digital racing team of Le Mans winner Timo Bernhard. The duo prevailed over Luca Alpert and John Atkinson Jr. from Phoenix eSport Cup. Third place went to Dennis Birmanns and Max Montermann and the Team Leipert eSports Yellow. “I have already celebrated a few victories in the DNLS in the TCR class and it is always a great experience to race here,” said Frank. “In other racing series we now also race with the Cup Porsche. So it made sense for us to switch to the 911 in the DNLS as well. You therefore don’t have to adjust yourself all the time. The fact that we managed to win straight away is fantastic.”
In SP10, Ruben Bonga and Felix Quirmbach were victorious in the BMW M4 GT4 of BS Competition. “That was a hard piece of work,” admitted Quirmbach who is only 17 years old. “After some problems in the qualifying, we had to start from the last position. In the first stint, Ruben already laid the foundation for us to make up position after position in the race.” Constantin Tscharf in the Mercedes-AMG GT4 of URANO eSports crossed the line in second place, with Alexander Arana and Tatu Siipola in the BMW M4 GT4 of WALKENHORST X-R-CER following in third position. The fact that the balance of performance in the GT4 class is just right was demonstrated not only by the many thrilling fights for positions in the race, but also by the drivers themselves. “The AMG is a little stronger on the straights, but we have a slight advantage in the corners – so it all balances out,” said Quirmbach.
In SP3T, a number of Hyundai Elantra N TCs made their debut in the DNLS. In a thirillig finish, Corentin Guinez and Felix Luding prevailed for Sim RC$ DNLS SP3T over Jan Böhl (Impulse Racing 422) as well as Steen Ledger and Konstantin Stolzenburg (Puresim Esports).
The second race of the Digital Nürburgring Endurance Series presented by Goodyear is scheduled for 17 December. The NIMEX 3.5h Race will run over the new distance of 210 minutes.
