Four points, four hours: the NLS title comes down to Saturday
The Adrenalin BMW trio leads Fielenbach and Sandberg by four points after their first zero of the year, and the standings still carry a dropped result
Four points. That is all that separates the top two in the 2026 Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie standings going into the final round on Saturday 10 October. Edoardo Bugane, Yannick Fübrich and Sven Markert lead on 94 points. Alexander Fielenbach and Oskar Sandberg are next on 90.
The finale, the 2. NLS Sportwarte-Trophy, is a four-hour race that starts at 12:00 CEST, with qualifying from 08:30. The full Saturday timetable, ticket prices and the story behind the race name are in our NLS10 schedule and season finale guide.
RNT-Motorsports will be at the Nürburgring for the finale, with Jakob van Putten and photographer Tessa van Duin accredited for the weekend.
The leaders scored nothing for the first time in September
The Adrenalin trio arrived at the September double header as clear leaders. In NLS9, the second race of that weekend, their BMW M240i suffered a technical failure and had to be towed off the track. The official NLS report called it “the first time this year the championship leaders failed to score points.”
Fielenbach and Sandberg took full advantage. Driving a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 CS in the CUP3 class, they finished second in class and, in the organiser’s words, “closed the gap to the top of the standings to just four points.”
94 against 90, with a dropped result still to come
The provisional overall standings after NLS9:
| Pos. | Drivers | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Edoardo Bugane, Yannick Fübrich, Sven Markert | 94 |
| 4 | Alexander Fielenbach, Oskar Sandberg | 90 |
| 6 | Alexandru Vasilescu | 80 |
| 7 | Patrick Assenheimer, Tobias Müller, Dylan Pereira | 72 |
| 10 | ‘Russ Turner’ | 70 |
Source: VLN, “Vorläufiger Tabellenstand Gesamtwertung 2026”, dated 13 September 2026. Drivers sharing a car share a position.
One detail matters a lot here. The VLN marks these standings as provisional and “subject to a dropped result”. Once each crew’s worst score comes off, the gap can look quite different from the 94 to 90 on paper.
It also explains why a BMW M240i and a Cayman GT4 head the table rather than a GT3 car. NLS points are scored in each class, so a crew that wins its class consistently can outscore the fastest cars on the track. Our explainer on the NLS class system sets out how the classes work.
Two races, two different GT3 winners
At the front, the September weekend produced two different winners. NLS8 ended in a photo finish: Jens Klingmann, Jordan Pepper and Ugo de Wilde won for Schubert Motorsport in the BMW M4 GT3 EVO by 0.308 seconds after 27 laps. Klingmann called it “truly motorsport at its finest”.
In NLS9, Falken Motorsports hit back with a one-two in the wet. Tim Heinemann and Morris Schuring won from pole in their Porsche 911 GT3 R, ahead of the sister car of Nico Menzel and Flynt Schuring. “I’ve never experienced conditions as bad as today’s. Aquaplaning in every corner,” said Heinemann afterwards.
Patrick Assenheimer, Tobias Müller and Dylan Pereira completed that podium in the LOSCH Motorsport by Black Falcon Porsche and won SP9 Pro-Am. Pereira comes to the Nordschleife after winning the rain-hit first GT World Challenge race in Barcelona with Alex Aka for Tresor Attempto Racing.
Our hunch
Four points is nothing over four hours on the Nordschleife. But the bigger unknown is not on the track, it is the dropped result. A crew that had one bad race all year gets to throw it away, and the Adrenalin crew has just had theirs. That could make the real gap bigger than the table suggests, or smaller, depending on what the other side has to drop. Until the VLN publishes standings with the dropped result applied, nobody can say for sure who has the advantage.
What we do know is that a single technical problem cost the leaders their cushion in September. On Saturday, finishing may matter more than speed.
Who takes the 2026 NLS title, the Adrenalin BMW trio or Fielenbach and Sandberg in the Cayman? Tell us in the comments.
Four things to watch on Saturday
- Qualifying from 08:30. In the classes that decide the title, staying out of trouble in traffic matters more than grid position. Watch whether either contender takes risks this early.
- The weather. The Eifel in October can be wet, cold or foggy, sometimes all in one morning. NLS9 showed how quickly a race can turn.
- The pit stops. In a four-hour race every stop and every driver change counts in a close class fight.
- The GT3 fight. Schubert or Falken again, or a third winner in three races?
The entry list is due on Wednesday and we will publish it as soon as it is out. RNT-Motorsports will report from the Nürburgring throughout Saturday, with photos by Tessa van Duin. New to the series? Start with what the NLS is.
