{"id":74550,"date":"2025-08-17T07:35:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T07:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/74550\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T07:35:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T07:35:12","slug":"falken-motorsports-relentless-pace-grant-them-1-2-in-nls-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/74550\/","title":{"rendered":"Falken Motorsports relentless pace grant them 1-2 in NLS 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Credit:<\/p>\n

The No.3 Falken Motorsports Porsche of Klaus Bachler and Sven M\u00fcller have won the sixth race of the NLS (N\u00fcrburgring Langstrecken-Serie), with the sister No.4 in second after a dominant performance in a delayed race. <\/p>\n

Qualifying was due to take place early in the morning, but heavy fog delayed it until 12:00 local time. The race then got underway at 14:00, with four and a half hours scheduled instead of six, due to the delay. <\/p>\n

Fog still covered the track when the cars piled out onto the track, but not quite as bad as it had been earlier in the morning. <\/p>\n

After 40 minutes of qualifying, Nico Menzel in the No.4 Falken Motorsports Porsche took pole position, after Dan Arrow in the No.48 Black Falcon Porsche held the top time for most of the session. He ended up second. <\/p>\n

Then through a mix of more SP9 cars and Porsche Cup 2s (the highest of which in third overall), nine out of the top ten cars were Porsche 911s. The only exception was the No.50 SP9-AM Audi in ninth place. <\/p>\n

It was a clean getaway for the pole sitter, and the rest of starting group one. The No.4 led away from the No.48, with the No.3 Falken car working its way past Cup 2 cars to get up to third overall. <\/p>\n

In starting group two, the Cup 3 pole sitting car, the No.959 Porsche seemed to have an issue on the early part of the Nordschlife. Harley Haughton in that car had a high speed spin, hitting the barrier and eventually coming to a stop in the gravel, but got back going under its own steam after losing a large chunk of time. <\/p>\n

The barrier Haughton hit was damaged, so a code 60 was deployed in that section of the track while the marshals worked on repairing it. <\/p>\n

\"Credit:<\/p>\n

The No.3 car kept charging forward, Sven M\u00fcller right on the back of Dan Arrow in the No.48 for second place. Meanwhile the No.6 Ford Mustang had a good start, up from 15th on the grid to fourth by the end of lap 1. <\/p>\n

Frank Stippler in that car quickly caught the back of the battle between the two Porsches. In front of these three cars the No.4 car of Dennis Marschall had built up a gap of over four seconds. <\/p>\n

M\u00fcller kept having looks to get by Arrow, as Stippler did on M\u00fcller, but neither driver could find the momentum or space to complete the move on the tight Nordschlife. All three cars were separated by just half a second at points around the lap. <\/p>\n

On lap 3, Stippler used all the grunt of his V8 to power past M\u00fcller on the almost five kilometer D\u00f6ttinger H\u00f6he straight. <\/p>\n

As they crossed the line to start a new lap, Arrow tried to get past some slower traffic, but he tagged the No.123 BMW 325i sending that car spinning around. Arrow continued unscathed but the BMW had to pit with suspension damage. <\/p>\n

On the early part of the Nordschlife on the same lap, M\u00fcller got caught in traffic and lost a massive chunk of time behind the two cars ahead. Meanwhile in all of the fighting and drama, Marschall had grown his lead out to nine seconds. <\/p>\n

\"Credit:<\/p>\n

When the battle for second reached the D\u00f6ttinger H\u00f6he once again, Stippler used his Mustang’s superior straight line speed again to get into second place. Arrow tried to fight back at the beginning of the next lap, but he couldn’t quite find a gap past. <\/p>\n

Arrow quickly fell into the clutches of M\u00fcller once again too, the Falken driver making quick work of the Dutchman, as he got caught up in traffic. <\/p>\n

Stippler quickly began catch up to Marschall, bringing the gap down to just two and a half seconds a lap after he had gotten by Arrow. Seemingly his favourite move for the day, Stippler caught the No.4 on the D\u00f6ttinger H\u00f6he and flew past. <\/p>\n

All of the top three pit on that lap, with Arrow continuing on for another lap. M\u00fcller gave way to Klaus Bachler, Stippler got out for Vincent Kolb and Marschall allowed Nico Menzel to get in. <\/p>\n

In the pit stops however, the No.4 retook the lead. The HRT Ford crew must have had an issue, as the pit stops are done to a set time. <\/p>\n

Due to the fact that Arrow stayed out an extra lap meant that his next pit stop would be longer than that of the other leaders, but later on in the race the No.48 would benefit from being able to do a shorter stint. Mike Stursberg got into that car for the next stint. <\/p>\n

\"Credit:<\/p>\n

After the first stops, Menzel in the No.4 led from the No.3 sister car of Bachler. Kolb in the Mustang fell to third, with Stursberg in fourth after his longer stop. Notably, Kolb was dropping a lot of time to the Falken cars in front, losing over 10 seconds on lap 9. <\/p>\n

Soon Bachler caught his teammate, the two Porsches battling it out for the lead of the race. <\/p>\n

With exactly three hours remaining the No.347 SP9-PRO car slowed on the D\u00f6ttinger H\u00f6he with a rear left puncture. The Toyo Tires Porsche cup car was the only car in its class, so they were just racing to get to the finish. <\/p>\n

For the next handful of laps, the No.4 led the No.3 but just metres at points. Bachler couldn’t quite find a way past Menzel, but both drivers extended their lead over the Ford in third despite the battling. By the start of lap 14, they were almost 90 seconds ahead of the next runner. <\/p>\n

After the two went side-by-side briefly, Menzel pulled out a two second gap in traffic. Elsewhere, everyone had settled into the race and the action had quietened down as we neared half distance. <\/p>\n

They both pit again on the same lap too, both cars swapping out drivers once again. Marschall would take back over the lead No.4, and M\u00fcller would get back in the No.3. Kolb in the Ford followed them in too, well over 100 seconds back at this stage. Patrick Assenheimer got into that car for the first time today during the stop. <\/p>\n

On lap 17 M\u00fcller finally made the move at the end of the D\u00f6ttinger, taking the lead from Marschall. <\/p>\n

With just under two hours to go, the No.48 Porsche received a penalty lap for the earlier collision with the BMW. This involved going around the outside of turn 2 at a set speed, losing them around 10 seconds. They still sat in fourth afterwards. <\/p>\n

\"Credit:<\/p>\n

The No.160 had drama on the D\u00f6ttinger, with the diffuser coming loose and discarding itself in the middle of the track. That car came straight into the pits for repairs. <\/p>\n

The No.4 car took its third pit stop a lap earlier than the sister car, because of that they took the lead of the race. Pitting a lap earlier allowed them to take a shorter pit stop, although they would possibly have to do an extra stop to get to the end of the race. <\/p>\n

The No.6 Ford had a slower stop for their third one, with the HRT crew changing the front left brake pads. A highly unusual change for a shorter race, but they still held third place. <\/p>\n

With under an hour left to go, Menzel in the No.4 got held up by traffic and almost lost the lead to the sister car. Bachler was just unable to get by, and the lead Falken car quickly grew the gap back out. <\/p>\n

With 15 minutes to go there was a battle for the lead in the Cup 3 class, with the No.962 leading the No.940. Meanwhile, both of the leading Porsches pit, the No.4 a lap before the No.3. The No.3 came out ahead of its sister car, Bachler ahead of Menzel with just one lap to go. <\/p>\n

The No.940 made the move for the lead in Cup 3 on the final lap, after setting the classes fastest lap on the penultimate lap. However, they got a late penalty that ruined their chances of a win in class. <\/p>\n

Menzel wasn’t quite able to catch the sister car, so it was the No.3 Porsche that won in the end after a dominant race from both Falken cars. The No.6 Ford came home third, ahead of the No.48 Porsche. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The No.3 Falken Motorsports Porsche of Klaus Bachler and Sven M\u00fcller have won the sixth race of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-74550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}