Rain keeps turning NLS9 over as Schubert crashes out of the race it won on Saturday

The lead of NLS9 has changed hands more than once in the rain at the Nürburgring, and with an hour and 55 minutes left of the four-hour race the Falken Motorsports number 44 Porsche 911 GT3 R is back in front. Tim Heinemann leads by 19.341 seconds from a Walkenhorst Aston Martin.

The number 48 LOSCH Motorsport by BLACK FALCON Porsche led as recently as half an hour ago after climbing from 27th. It is fourth now. The car that won here on Saturday is out of the race altogether.

Race control declared a wet race before the start

At 11:26, more than half an hour before the flag, race control put out the message that this would be run as a wet race. That was the right call and it did not come close to covering what followed.

RNT-Motorsports is at the circuit. The rain has come through in bands rather than steadily, and the back section of the Nordschleife has been far wetter than the start and finish area, which is the classic trap here. There was a long stretch where the track was half wet and half dry, and teams split cleanly between staying out on slicks and pitting for intermediates. There have been spins and there have been crashes.

A long-running Code 60 zone was in place at Flugplatz from 12:47. Our explainer on Code 60 covers how the system works and why a 20.8-kilometre lap needs it.

Saturday’s winner is out on lap seven

The number 77 Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO, which won NLS8 by 0.308 seconds on Saturday, stopped on lap seven after a heavy crash. Ugo de Wilde was at the wheel. The car sits 96th in the classification and has not moved since.

It is the second significant loss of the afternoon. The number 123 Mühlner Motorsport Porsche stopped two laps earlier, on lap five.

Lap times ranged from 7:54 to 17:44

The spread tells the story better than any description of the weather. The quickest laps of the race are in the 7:54 range, set when the circuit was dry. During the worst of the rain the leader went round in 10:27, and the Ollis Garage Dacia recorded a 17:44.

In the last ten minutes the times have come back to around 9:10, which means the line is drying again. The leader lapped in 9:18 on his most recent tour, the two Porsches behind him both in 9:08.

Cup cars and alternative-fuel Audis are in the mix

Conditions like these compress the field, and the classification has shown it all afternoon. The CUP2 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars ran as high as sixth and seventh during the wettest phase, and the number 901 is still eighth overall now that the line has dried.

The two Max Kruse Racing Audis on alternative fuels are also in the picture, with the number 19 tenth. The number 11, which qualified sixth, took a 35-second stop-and-go penalty for falling below the minimum pit stop time and dropped out of the top fifteen.

Three of the leading cars have open investigations

At 12:30 an incident involving the leading number 48 and the number 494 was placed under investigation. At 13:09 a second incident, involving the number 17, the number 44 and the number 888, went the same way.

That covers the current leader and two of the cars around it, all with something outstanding. No decisions had been published at the time of writing, and the stewards have until the end of the race and beyond to rule.

One thing was resolved. The qualifying incident between the number 47 KCMG Mercedes-AMG and Frank Stippler’s number 64 Mustang was closed with no further action at 10:14. The KCMG car does not appear in the race classification.

The order with 1:55 to go

Live classification after 13 laps, taken from the series timing feed with 1:55 remaining. Positions and gaps change quickly in these conditions.

Loek Hartog is running in the number 54 Dinamic GT Porsche. David Jahn has the Gamota BMW ninth. The Ollis Garage Dacia Logan, whose story we told this morning, is outside the top ninety and still running.

Our view from the fence: this is not settled

Nineteen seconds is nothing over an hour and 55 minutes here, and the number 48 has already shown what this race can do to a gap. Its early stop dropped it to 27th inside the opening half hour, it led by the time the rain was at its worst, and it is fourth again now.

What makes it hard to call is that two of the three cars at the front are PRO-AM entries. In the dry, class ratings tell you something about how the last hour will go. In these conditions they tell you much less, because the advantage sits with whoever reads the next shower correctly rather than with whoever is quickest over one lap.

The argument for Falken is the one that held on Saturday too. It has the strongest car on pure pace, and if the circuit stays dry for the final hour that counts for more than it has all afternoon. The argument against is that the circuit has not stayed dry for an hour yet today.

Two showers would turn this over

The race runs to 16:00 local time. Two more showers are enough to turn the order over completely, and a dry final hour is enough to hand it back to the quickest car.

Watch the stewards. Three of the leading cars have open investigations, and a penalty applied after the flag would decide this differently from the way it looks on the road.

Our full report follows after the finish. The qualifying report has how the grid was set, and the NLS8 race report covers Saturday. Follow the rest on the RNT-Motorsports live blog.