The Digital Nürburgring Endurance Series starts again on Saturday, 1 February 2025. The title patronage will be taken over by the recently announced new partner of the NLS: the second round of the popular championship in the virtual Green Hell is the Goodridge 3h Race. The programme once again features thrilling racing action, which will be broadcast in the livestream from 11:45 a.m. on VLN.de. Race control will send the field onto the 180-minute race distance punctually at 1 pm.
Christian Vormann celebrated his premiere as race director at the DNLS season opener in December. The permanent race director of the ADAC Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie is also part of race control in the digital counterpart, where he acts as spotter and steward. The overarching motto ‘Respect – My Race is Fairplay’ is thus also realised in the DNLS. ‘It was impressive to see how professional things are behind the scenes in the virtual world – this is definitely serious racing and not just a game,’ says Vormann. ‘The approach is very different from its real-life counterpart, as we primarily follow the clues from participants that are transmitted online to the race organisers. We can then analyse the scenes from every conceivable angle and, if necessary, impose sanctions. We don’t have these options in the real NLS. Here, we work with a large number of stewards around the track, who are both the eyes and ears of the race organisers.’ In addition to Vormann, two other stewards, Simon Christmann and Sebastian Wunsch, are on duty. The race organisers are Dominik Ramb and Lukas Unger. Operators are Simon Ehses and Gunnar Miesen. With the exception of Vormann, the entire simracing organisation team behind the DNLS has the ‘Simracing Official Licence Level A’ from the DMSB. All of them are experienced sim racers themselves, and race director Ramb is also a race director in karting.
The participants in the Digital Nürburgring Endurance Series are just as professional as the race organisers – and race two of the season promises another three hours of thrilling racing. In the season opener, AMG Team Apex Racing won the race by a wafer-thin margin ahead of BS+COMPETITION. The Goodridge 3h race will be a rematch. Reigning ADAC GT Masters champion Elias Seppänen – together with Salva Talens – will line up for Apex. The British racing team will also field a second Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Gordon Mutch and Tom Reiher. Veloce Thrustmaster will make another guest appearance. ‘Flying Finn Academy’ driver Tatu Siipola and Daniel Lafuente will take turns in the BMW M4 GT3. MühlnerMotorsportXSmilla will be on the grid with a new Realdriver. NLS driver Joshua Hislop will take the wheel of the Porsche 911 GT3 R together with Serej Blum.
Nitro x Falken, Dörr eSports and Falken Simracing will start the second race without a real driver. Teams that contest the race without a driver from real motorsport will either receive a 60-second stop-and-hold penalty during the race or a time penalty of 85 seconds after the race.
There is also plenty of excitement in the other classes. In the Porsche Esports Endurance Trophy Nürburgring, SCHERER eSPORT celebrated a one-two victory ahead of Apex Racing in the season opener. Whether the cards will be reshuffled in race two – the answer will be found in the Goodridge 3h race on Saturday.
WSR Esports ButtKicker will make a guest appearance in the GT4 SP10 class. The Aston Martin Vantage GT4 will be shared by Esteban Rodriguez from the USA and Konstantin Stolzenburg from Germany. It remains to be seen how the duo will ultimately fare against the top dogs from Apex Racing, SimRC (both Mercedes-AMG GT4), BS+COMPETITION and Team Heusinkveld (both BMW M4 GT4).
In the top group of the SP3, however, there are no changes to the crews. The strong teams from the season opener, SCHERER eSPORT, smillaesport x ENtropy and WolfMotorsportSimracing, will start with unchanged driver line-ups.
NLS presenters Jan Schmitz and Lars Gutsche will open the livestream on VLN.de on Saturday at 11:45 a.m. from the Virtual Studio at the Nürburgring with a pre-show and a summary of the practice session. The virtual starting lights will switch to green at 13:00 for the three-hour distance.
