Hartog back in the car for the NLS double header at the Nürburgring

The ADAC RAVENOL Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie does not usually save its biggest weekend for the end. This year it has. Rounds eight and nine of the season run back to back on the Nordschleife on Saturday and Sunday, four hours each, with 136 cars entered and no dropped scores to hide behind.

And the driver most people in the paddock will want to shake hands with is a 23-year-old Dutchman who spent last weekend putting out a fire.

Hartog steps back into a Porsche days after the fire in Shanghai

Loek Hartog arrives in the Eifel as something the NLS paddock does not often get: a driver who has been on the international news for reasons that have nothing to do with a lap time.

At the China GT round in Shanghai, Hartog came upon the crashed car of Ollie Millroy with flames already taking hold. He stopped, got out, took a fire extinguisher and helped pull the injured Briton clear of the wreck. He did not have to stop. Nobody would have blamed a racing driver in the middle of a race for driving past and leaving it to the marshals.

This weekend he goes back to being a racing driver. Hartog shares the number 54 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Team Dinamic GT with Denmark’s Michael Klitgaard Christensen, in a class where a single mistake costs more than the whole weekend is worth.

Twenty-six cars can win outright, from seven manufacturers

The entry is 136 cars from 14 manufacturers, and the top of it is unusually crowded. There are 22 GT3 cars in SP9, and the series points out that the four alternative-fuel entries in AT 1 run to broadly the same lap times. That makes 26 cars with a realistic claim on the outright win, which is a lot for a four-hour race on a circuit that punishes optimism.

Seven manufacturers are represented at the sharp end: Porsche, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-AMG, Aston Martin, Ford and Lamborghini. Schubert Motorsport brings the BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Haupt Racing Team the Ford Mustang GT3, and KCMG enters a Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Le Mans winner Kamui Kobayashi in the line-up. Falken Motorsports and Dinamic GT carry the Porsche effort, Walkenhorst and PROsport the Aston Martins, and Renazzo Motorsport brings the Lamborghini.

The oddity of the weekend belongs to Max Kruse Racing. The team built around the former Germany international has a VW Golf GTI for Kruse himself, and three Audi R8 LMS GT3s in the AT 1 class, which means the footballer’s team is simultaneously running at the very back and at the very front of the field.

No dropped scores, and a title fight that punishes one bad weekend

Every round counts this season. There are no dropped results, which is what makes a double header this late in the year so dangerous: a bad Saturday cannot be erased by a good Sunday, it just sits there.

Edoardo Bugane, Yannick Fübrich and Sven Markert lead the overall standings on 79 points in the Adrenalin Motorsport Team Mainhattan Wheels BMW M240i Racing Cup, having won every race in their class so far this year. Alexander Fielenbach and Oskar Sandberg are second on 64 in the Smyrlis Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 CS, a gap that is entirely explained by one retirement. Third are the PROsport racing trio of Anton Abée, Yannik Himmels and Jörg Viebahn on 56 in a Mercedes-AMG GT4.

In the NLS Speed Trophy the picture is less open. Schubert Motorsport has 121 points with the BMW M4 GT3 Evo, well clear of 48 LOSCH Motorsport by BLACK FALCON on 75 with the Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo and Mercedes-AMG Team Ravenol on 60.

The Junior Trophy is the one worth watching. Raphael Rennhofer leads on 55 points in the Team LIQUI MOLY by BLACK FALCON Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. Tim Lukas Müller has 45 but has ended his season early. Behind them, Ryan Harrison, Leon Wassertheurer and Santiago Baztarrica are level on 40, and here is the catch: Harrison and Wassertheurer share the Cup Porsche with Rennhofer, so every point they score, he scores too. Baztarrica, in the Adrenalin Motorsport Team Mainhattan Wheels BMW M2 Racing, is the only one of the three who can actually close the gap.

Our view: the double header decides more than two race wins

Two four-hour races in two days is a different exercise from two race weekends a month apart. There is no time to rebuild a car properly, no time to fly in a replacement part, and no time to fix a driver who has had a rough Saturday. Teams that finish Saturday with a healthy car and a healthy crew start Sunday with an advantage that has nothing to do with pace.

That is why the Junior Trophy situation is the most interesting sub-plot here. Baztarrica needs two clean races and some luck from the leading Porsche. Rennhofer needs nothing to go wrong twice. Over eight hours of Nordschleife running, in September, with 136 cars and enormous speed differentials, “nothing goes wrong twice” is a big ask.

The overall win is a separate question. With 26 cars capable of it, the result will be decided by traffic and by the cost of a single slow stop, not by outright pace. That is the Nordschleife working exactly as intended.

Timetable, tickets and where to watch

Both days run to the same schedule.

Saturday is the 65th ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen, Sunday the 66th ADAC ACAS Cup. Tickets are 25 euros per day, free for children up to and including 14, from VLN.de/tickets or at the gate, and they include the open grandstands at the Grand Prix circuit, the Brünnchen and Pflanzgarten spectator areas, the paddock, the pit lane and the grid. If you are not there, the livestream on VLN.de is free, and Radio Nürburgring runs on rpr1.de and in the RPR1 app.

RNT-Motorsports is at the Nürburgring for both races. Friday was the practice day, and our full entry list for Saturday’s Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen is already online, with Sunday’s ACAS Cup list to follow.