The #7 Aston Martin converted pole into victory in a disrupted three-hour race, while fourth place secured the drivers’ crown for Lucas Auer, Luca Stolz and Maro Engel with one round remaining.
The Nürburgring delivered two decisive stories in the same result. Comtoyou Racing produced the strongest performance of the day, controlling the seventh round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup from pole with its #7 Aston Martin. Four places behind, Mercedes-AMG Team MANN-FILTER completed a season-long objective as Lucas Auer, Luca Stolz and Maro Engel secured the drivers’ championship before the Portimão finale.
The final classification placed the #32 Team WRT BMW second, 5.751 seconds behind the winner, with the #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing entry completing the podium at 6.243 seconds. MANN-FILTER followed at 6.715 seconds, close enough to the podium to underline its pace but, more importantly, exactly where it needed to be to settle the title.
Comtoyou Converts Pole into Control
Comtoyou arrived knowing that maximum points were required to keep its championship challenge alive. Mattia Drudi, Marco Sørensen and Nicki Thiim began by securing the ROWE Pole Position Award, giving Aston Martin its first overall GT World Challenge Europe pole since the 2018 CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa.
The #17 Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed car shared the front row, followed by the #80 Lionspeed GP Porsche and #59 Garage 59 McLaren. Team WRT’s #32 BMW qualified fifth but started eighth after a penalty carried over from free practice, promoting the #3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG and the championship-leading #48 MANN-FILTER entry.
Once the race began, the #7 remained the reference. The lead group compressed repeatedly as three Safety Car phases and three Full Course Yellow periods interrupted the three-hour contest. An early collision at Turn 8 between the #97 Rutronik Porsche and #89 Lionspeed Porsche brought a drive-through penalty and one Behaviour Warning Point for #97. Later, an incident involving #45 Rinaldi Racing, #12 GetSpeed Team Dubai and #97 at Turn 5 led into another Safety Car period.
When that Safety Car returned to the pits during the middle hour, #7 led #17, #59, #32, #3 and #48, with the first six cars covered by approximately four seconds. Thiim, Sørensen and Drudi absorbed each restart without surrendering the effective lead.
From trackside, the race looked less comfortable than the phrase ‘controlled from pole’ suggests. Every neutralisation compressed the visual gap, returning the championship contenders and podium challengers to the same short section of circuit. The #7 did not create its advantage through one decisive escape. It rebuilt control each time the race was reset.
After 83 laps and 426.37 kilometres, the Aston Martin crossed the line in 3:00:29.639. Thiim also set the fastest lap, a 1:56.247 on lap 57, completing a weekend built on pole position, race victory and outright pace.
Fourth Place Becomes a Championship Result
MANN-FILTER entered the weekend with a 41-point advantage over the #7 Comtoyou crew. The calculation was clear before the start: fourth place or better would secure the drivers’ crown regardless of every other result.
The #48 finished precisely fourth, only 0.472 seconds behind the #3 Mercedes-AMG in third. That margin meant the crew remained part of the podium fight until the end, but its more important contest had already been defined by the championship table.
Auer, Stolz and Engel built their campaign through consistency. The entry had finished second at Circuit Paul Ricard, Monza and the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, while also collecting intermediate points during the Belgian race. Nürburgring did not require another runner-up finish. It required the disciplined result that had placed them in control of the season.
Their fourth place made the title mathematically secure with one round remaining. Comtoyou had done everything available at the Nürburgring, including taking pole and winning the race, but could not extend the drivers’ fight to Portimão.
WRT and Verstappen Racing Capitalise Behind the Winner
Team WRT produced the strongest recovery at the front. The #32 BMW of Kelvin van der Linde, Jordan Pepper and Charles Weerts started eighth after its grid penalty and finished second, moving through the compressed lead group while avoiding the penalties that later reshaped the order.
The #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing car followed only 0.492 seconds behind. Dani Juncadella, Chris Lulham and Jules Gounon delivered the team’s first Endurance Cup podium, adding to its breakthrough Sprint Cup victory at Magny-Cours earlier in the season.
The gaps behind them showed how little separated the leading group. MANN-FILTER was 0.472 seconds behind #3, while the #17 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG finished fifth, 1.023 seconds behind #48. The #64 HRT Ford completed the top six before the Gold Cup-leading #99 Tresor Attempto Audi.
Pit Timing and Penalties Rewrite the Final Hour
The final hour produced the most misleading phase of the live timing. A Full Course Yellow was called after the #555 CSA Racing McLaren became stranded in the gravel at Turn 12, and the pit entry was closed. With cars on different stop counts, #111 CSA Racing, #54 Dinamic GT and #98 ROWE Racing appeared near or at the top of the order during the cycle. These were road-order positions, not settled net leads.
The final decisions clarified the picture. Tanart Sathienthirakul completed 85 minutes in the #54 Dinamic GT Porsche, exceeding the maximum driving time. A 20-second stop-and-go was converted into 52 seconds added to the race time, leaving the car 43rd. Dorian Boccolacci completed 72 minutes in the #2 Boutsen VDS Porsche and received a drive-through converted into 27 seconds, placing the car 12th. The #98 ROWE BMW was not penalised, but its late final stop left it 38th.
Garage 59 suffered the most dramatic loss of position. The #59 McLaren received 10 seconds for exceeding the 80 km/h limit under Full Course Yellow conditions. Removing the applied penalty from its final elapsed time shows that the car’s raw race time was only 0.490 seconds behind the winner. With the penalty included, Joseph Loake, Dean Macdonald and Marvin Kirchhöfer were classified 10th.
Further decisions included 10 seconds for the #50 AF Corse Ferrari after it caused contact with #96 at Turn 4 and gained a position. The final result also applied 10-second Full Course Yellow infringement penalties to #177, #88, #66, #992, #93 and #11, in addition to #59.
Late Moves Decide the Class Battles
Tresor Attempto Racing won the Gold Cup after Dylan Pereira took the class lead during the final hour. The #99 Audi, shared with Andrea Frassineti and Alex Aka, finished seventh overall and only 0.454 seconds ahead of the #10 Boutsen VDS Porsche. The #71 Selected Car Racing Ferrari completed the class podium, while #998 ROWE Racing finished fourth in Gold and 17th overall. Gold Cup pole-sitter #58 Garage 59 was not classified after completing 42 laps.
The Silver Cup produced a late change at the front. Team WRT’s #30 BMW had led much of the race, but Niklas Kalus completed the decisive pass for the #65 HRT Ford. Together with Nicolas Baert and Eduardo Coseteng, Kalus delivered the Mustang GT3’s first GT World Challenge class victory. Second place was still enough for Matisse Lismont, Ignacio Montenegro and Amaury Cordeel to secure the Silver Cup title for Team WRT.
In Bronze Cup, the #222 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG recovered the lead it had lost at the start. Kiern Jewiss, Charles Dawson and Reece Barr moved back ahead during the final hour and finished 1.658 seconds clear of the #87 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG. The #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari took third despite its involvement in a Turn 1 incident, securing the Bronze Cup teams’ championship. The drivers’ title remains open for the Portimão finale.
A Decisive Nürburgring Weekend
The remaining headline entries finished close enough to show the depth of the field. The #46 Team WRT BMW of Dan Harper, Max Hesse and Valentino Rossi placed ninth, 10.280 seconds behind the winner. Natural Elements by Walkenhorst Motorsport brought the #34 Aston Martin home 16th, while the sister #35 car finished 41st. ROWE Racing’s #998 BMW took fourth in Gold, but its Pro-class #98 entry ended the race in 38th after the late pit sequence.
Fifty-five cars started, 46 were classified and nine failed to reach classification. Across three Safety Car periods, three Full Course Yellow phases and a heavily staggered final pit cycle, the #7 Comtoyou Aston Martin remained the sporting reference. The official classification then supplied the weekend’s larger consequence: MANN-FILTER had converted a fourth consecutive top-four result into an early drivers’ championship.
For the 28,000 spectators at the Nürburgring, the race therefore ended with two different winners. Comtoyou Racing owned the afternoon, taking pole, victory and fastest lap. Auer, Stolz and Engel owned the season, leaving Germany with the Endurance Cup title already beyond reach.
Images Courtesy of Batuhan Pehlivan
