After last weekend’s freezing conditions saw the cancellation the NLS season opener last Saturday, the field has gathered again ahead of Saturday’s 4 hour NLS2.
And amongst the cars out testing on Friday were a number of fan favourites.
Mercedes AMG were early to take the decision last weekend that the conditions were unreachable and pulled out both the Team Ravenol and Verstappen Racing cars some time before the official decision to cancel the race came.
So today’s practice sessions saw the next opportunity for the teams to get meaningful mileage.
And it was far from a perfect run, the car pitting early in the session in the hands of Verstappen with reported suspension issues that saw the team’s primary car sidelined for the remainder of the session, a spare and unliveried AMG later emerging for Dani Juncadella to get in some lappery.
And that meant too that not only the Verstappen car saw mileage, but other emerging fan favourites too.
Test debutants also included the newly announced KCMG effort, again with Mercedes AMG, experienced hands David Pittard and Jesse Krohn joined by emerging Japanese talents Sho Tsuboi and Nirei Fukuzumi in the #47 car.
Also out on track, albeit briefly, was a car not currently listed for NLS, but that is set to contest the 2026 Nurburgring 24 Hours in the SPX class, HWA’s throwback Mercedes 190 Evo though would end its track session on the back of a flatbed.
Having a more successful time on track though was the big surprise of the last few days as BMW M Motorsport rolled out their massive fan favourite M3 Touring in public for the first time.
Jens Klingmann and Uno de Wilde were entrusted with the new beastie!
The BMW will race in SPX on Saturday joined by the spectacular looking KTM Bow GTX with Reiter Engineering fielding Miklas Born, Arne Hoffmeister, and Julien Apothéloz.
By comparison the newly re-shod and re-liveried Dunlop Motorsport Porsche run by Schnabl Engineering, is a more retrained, but potentially much more competitive proposition.
Schnabl’s second car retaining the Falken Tyres rubber and livery as Sumitomo opt to show off both brands in NLS competition.
Dorian Boccolacci and Nico Menzel will campaign the Dunlop liveried #17 Porsche 911 GT3R.
All pictures copyright Frozenspeed
