The second RAVENOL 3h Race opens the second half of the season of the Digital Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie on Saturday, 15 February. When almost five dozen cars start the race over a distance of 180 minutes in the virtual Green Hell at 1 p.m. on the dot, there will be plenty of excitement as the decision in the championship draws closer. There will be no preliminary decision, as there are no scratch results in the 2024/2025 winter season. The digital race day will be streamed live on VLN.de from 11.30 am.
Two SCHERER eSPORT teams are ahead in the overall standings. The Porsche 911 GT3 Cup with starting number #116 and the Renault Clio with #269 took two class victories each. William Chadwick and Luca Alpert won in the 911 alongside regular driver Raphael Rennhofer, while Sven Winter and Michael Teusch triumphed twice in the Clio.
As in the real ADAC Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, multiclass action is the order of the day in the DNLS. New this season is the Clio class SP3. It forms the counterpart to the much faster and spectacular GT3 cars in the SP9. And even if the performance is much lower – the class of compact sports cars from France offers exciting sport. ‘From the second lap onwards, we always have to keep an eye on the mirrors when we’re travelling in the D class and the GT3 pack flies past us. Above all, we have to make sure that we keep the momentum going everywhere,’ says championship leader Teusch. ‘We reach our top speed of around 215 km/h in the Fuchsröhre. On the Döttinger Höhe, we have no chance of getting into this range. The Clio has a bit less power at the top. What’s more, we’re driving without ABS, so the wheels on the rear axle tend to lock up. That’s why it’s extremely challenging to drive the Clio, but it’s always a lot of fun.’
BS+COMPETITION leads the table in the SP9 class. European truck champion Norbi Kiss and Felix Quirmbach finished second in the digital equivalent of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 at the season opener and won the second race on 1 February. AMG Team Apex Racing is in second place – with a respectable gap of seven points. Gordie Mutch took a liking to the DNLS during his most recent guest appearance. The Briton, who won the Praga Cup in 2022 and finished tenth in the British GT4 Championship in 2024, replaces Elias Seppänen as real driver at Apex Racing. For Pole Promotion Esports, the team led by DTM champion René Rast and Alexey Nesov, up-and-coming talent Sebastian Øgaard will take his place in the simulator. The Dane finished on the podium twice in the GTWC Silver Cup in 2024. After a one-race break, Tim Heinemann returns to the virtual cockpit of the Team Nitro x Falken Porsche 911 GT3 R. The 27-year-old sim racing professional made his DTM debut in 2023 and took victory in the real ADAC Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie with Falken Motorsports last year.
Falken Simracing leads the championship in the GT4 SP10 class. Lucas U. Müller and Benedikt Hitz drove the BMW M4 GT4 to third and first place and are just one point ahead of SimRC. In the Mercedes-AMG GT4, Corentin Guinez and Marvi Strehl finished second twice.
The second RAVENOL 3h Race is the third of four races in the 2024/2025 winter season. NLS presenters Patrick Simon and Olli Martini 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 practice. The virtual starting lights will switch to green at 13:00 for the three-hour distance.
