Nürburgring NLS3 race day
The Nürburgring Endurance Series (NLS3) is running now and the entry lists include cars like the Yokohama‑shod BMW M4 GT3 EVO #77 and a Ford Mustang GT3 #65 battling through the weekend. (x.com) Those entries highlight how manufacturers and privateer teams continue to develop GT3 machinery in real endurance conditions at the Ring. (x.com)
At Nürburgring race weekends, a Ford Mustang can line up against a BMW M4, a Porsche 911, and a Lamborghini on the same 24.358-kilometer loop, and that is exactly what the third 2026 Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie round put on track on April 10 and 11. The official series calendar lists NLS3 as the 57th Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy, one of 10 races across 8 events in the 2026 season. (nuerburgring-langstrecken-serie.de) This series is not a neat one-class sprint. The Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie says its races regularly mix near-production touring cars with full GT3 machines, and the Nürburgring says fields can reach 165 cars on roughly 24 kilometers of track. (nuerburgring-langstrecken-serie.de) (nuerburgring.de) The top class here is called SP9, which is where the GT3 cars live. For NLS3 in 2026, the entry list showed 15 SP9 cars inside a total field of 139 entries. (gt-report.com) That is why two entries stood out before the race even started. Car #77 was a Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO on Yokohama tires with Marco Wittmann, Philipp Eng, and Robin Frijns, while car #65 was an HRT Ford Racing Ford Mustang GT3 with Dennis Olsen, Frédéric Vervisch, Christopher Mies, and Vincent Kolb. (gt-report.com) (nuerburgring-langstrecken-serie.de) The BMW entry matters because Schubert is one of BMW’s headline Nordschleife programs in 2026, and the series itself flagged car #77 in March as part of a three-team factory-supported BMW push at the Green Hell. BMW’s own photo archive also showed the #77 M4 GT3 EVO already running in the second 2026 NLS weekend on March 20 and 21 with Yokohama branding on the car. (nuerburgring-langstrecken-serie.de) (press.bmwgroup.com) The Ford entry matters because the Mustang GT3 is still a relatively new sight in top-level endurance racing compared with the Porsche 911 GT3 R or BMW M4 GT3. HRT put the Mustang in the Pro category for NLS3, which means this was not a token appearance or a gentleman-driver test day. (gt-report.com) Nürburgring teams use these races like a wind tunnel with traffic, weather, curbs, and consequences. A four-hour NLS race gives engineers long stints, live pit stops, tire wear data, brake temperature data, and driver feedback on a track that punishes weak setups faster than almost anywhere else. (nuerburgring-langstrecken-serie.de) (51gt3.com) That track is the reason manufacturers keep coming back. The combined Nürburgring layout used for these races is 24.358 kilometers long, and even the Nürburgring’s own event page sells the series on the idea that everything happens on one of the world’s most demanding circuits, with fans close to the action. (51gt3.com) (nuerburgring.de) So NLS3 race day is not just another Saturday support race. It is a live workshop where factory drivers like Wittmann, Eng, Frijns, Olsen, Vervisch, and Mies can chase a result while their teams learn which GT3 package still works after four hours of the Nürburgring trying to shake it apart. (gt-report.com)
