•    Porsche one-two after first six hours of high drama at Nürburgring GP 
•    Red flag with 40 mins to go after accident for No.921 Mühlner and barrier repairs
•    Up2Race, Proton Competition and Viper Niza Racing Mercedes-AMG on lead lap
•    Red Camel-Jordans assumes 992 lead, Not Only Motorsport on top in TCE-TCX
•    Concluding 6hrs LIVE at Creventic Motorsports TV from 12.00 local on Sunday

Nürburgring, Germany (4 July 2026):
Michelin 24H SERIES European Series debutants Up2Race lead the inaugural Michelin 12H NÜRBURGRING at the halfway stage, following an unusual conclusion to the opening six hours of the race in which the action was red flagged with 40 minutes to go.

In the final hour of part one, the 992 class leading Mühlner Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992 I) had a fast, heavy impact with the Turn One barriers, triggering a Code 60 period. Thankfully, driver Joshua Bednarski emerged safely from the No.921 car and was OK - although he was sent to a local hospital for additional checks. Due to the length of time taken for barrier repairs though, racing concluded early.

Going into the overnight break, where all cars are held in parc fermé conditions, the Up2Race Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) EVO shared by Fabio Grosse, Tim Heinemann and Oleksiy Kikireshko leads the race after a highly impressive championship debut thus far. 

Second is the GT3 PRO-AM Proton Competition Porsche of Jörg Dreisow, Manuel Lauck, Joel Sturm and Constantin Dressler, and the Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO of Viper Niza Racing’s Melvin Moh, Dominic Ang and Douglas Khoo is also on the lead lap at the head of GT3-AM.

As a result of the excursion for the No.921 Mühlner car, the 992 class is led by Red Camel-Jordans.nl quartet Fabian Danz, Rik, Luc and Ivo Breukers. TCE-TCX is led by the Not Only Motorsport Ligier JS2 R of Filippo Tornaghi, Gino Rocchio and Nathan Huet, and single car classes GTX and GT4 are led by KEO Racing’s Ligier JS2 RS and Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport’s BMW M4 GT4 EVO (G82).

The start to the race was pretty even at the front, pole-qualifier Mikaël Grenier maintained the lead in the GetSpeed Team PCX Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO as Sturm in the Proton Porsche pressed the Saintéloc Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II of Pierre Kaffer, the former slicing past at Turn Two. 

While Grenier did initially pull a slight gap over the rest, after the first half hour the lead had been slashed to just 0.3 seconds. Sturm was busily seeking a way past the Mercedes and also trying to fend off Heinemann in the Up2Race Porsche at the same time, the lead group impossibly close as the frantic action resembled a sprint race rather than an endurance contest.

Through traffic the podium battle ebbed and flowed, with Kaffer in the fourth placed Audi working hard to stay ahead of the Era Motorsport Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO of Jake Hill – up from seventh. Grenier was the first to pit with 70 minutes gone, Sturm then led but pitted 10 minutes later. All ran pretty smoothly until the one hour and 40 minute mark, the first Code 60 of the race.

Nicolas Guelinckx, at the wheel of HAAS RT’s brand new and debuting BMW M4 GT3 EVO, made contact with barriers at the Schumacher S causing significant damage to the car – thankfully he was unharmed. Then, at the point racing was ready to resume, drama befell the No.28 Mercedes.

Jordan Boisson, who was third, lost the car as he got on the power at the re-start and speared nose first into the barriers. Causing damage to the front end, the front-right wheel becoming stuck into the bodywork, he had to crawl to the pits where the team worked wonders – losing only eight laps.

Three hours into the race Dreisow held the lead for Proton by 85 seconds, although Tanner Harvey did start to eat into the gap in the GetSpeed Team JR286 Mercedes. When Dreisow next pitted, so Harvey moved into the lead as Up2Race continued to circulate in the lead group.

Ajith Kumar was the next to be bitten by the barriers, this time at Turn Three with two hours to go, after self-admittedly over-cooking it in the No.93 Ajith RedAnt Racing Mercedes. After a flurry of pit visits during the subsequent Code 60, Lauck held the lead in the Proton Porsche from Moh in the Viper Niza Mercedes and Grosse for Up2Race. 

Following another Code 60, needed to extract a 992 class Porsche from the gravel, there was roughly an hour of racing left to go in part one. Lauck led Grosse by 50 seconds but as a result of a team miscommunication, the Proton driver ended up pitting twice in quick succession – enabling Grosse to move ahead by a couple of seconds. This all came about moments before the red flags were flown.

Fourth place is held by the ARC Bratislava Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO of Miroslav, Matej and Adam Konopka, plus Zdeno Mikulasko, fifth the Juta Racing Audi R8 of Lutz Obermann, Andres Latorre and Leonardas Dirzys, and rounding out the top six is the GetSpeed Team JR286 Mercedes of Harvey, Steve Jans, Patrick Liddy and Jonathan Hirshberg.

Similarly to the early going in GT3, the front-running battle in 992 was very close indeed with Martin Rump holding the lead from pole position for Mühlner ahead of the HRT Performance car of James Kellett, and Rik Breukers in the Red Camel-Jordans.nl Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992 I).

Running nose-to-tail, a mistake from Rump on lap four at the Schumacher S put his car wide on the exit and Kellett immediately pounced. Pulling a slight gap as Rump refocussed, within a couple of laps the top three were running line astern once more. Kellett was able to open a five second gap after 45 minutes of action, but this had reduced to just three seconds at the end of hour one.

The HRT Porsche was the first to make a stop some 15 minutes later and after a couple of Code 60 periods those three entries were still the podium challengers. At the three-hour mark Conrad Tox Leveau led for Mühlner but just half an hour later, after pitting to hand the car over to Bednarski, the latter was tagged at the final chicane by the E2P Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 EVO.

Returning to pitlane, Bednarski took fuel and then rejoined the race fifth in 992 but a stop for Jonathan Kearney in the HRT Porsche moved Mühlner back up to fourth in quick order. Soon after, Bednarski was back in the lead as pit-stops cycled through and after a Code 60 with two hours to run he led 992 by the thick end of a minute from Ivo Breukers in the Red Camel car.

Bednarski led with an hour to go but his worrying accident soon followed. Following the subsequent Code 60 and red flag stoppage, the opening day of racing ended with Red Camel-Jordans.nl on top of 992, with three other cars also on the same lap – the No.910 Seblajoux Racing entry, the No.928 HRT Porsche and the No.920 Chazel Technologie Course car.

Tornaghi started the race for Not Only Motorsport, and the TCE-TCX class Ligier JS2 R stormed away from the three asBest Racing entries – headed by the team’s Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 CS (982) in the hands of Cesar Fonseca. While easily the quickest package, the Ligier’s lead was only a single lap at mid-distance but by the end of part one its advantage had tripled. 

Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport’s BMW M4 GT4 EVO (G82) produced strong and consistent pace in the hands of Michael Bonk, Martin Kroll, Claudia Hurtgen and her son Elia Weiss. In GTX, the KEO Racing Ligier JS2 RS of Adrian Kunzle and Kevin Madsen did encounter some gearing issues early on, with engine-related woes meaning the team has only completed 72 laps. 

All cars now remain in parc fermé conditions overnight ahead of the start of the concluding six hours of racing at 12.00 local time on Sunday, 5 July. Watch all of the action live at Creventic Motorsports TV on YouTube, links for the streaming and live timing are available at www.24hseries.com