The No. 88 Haribo Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Uwe Alzen, Lance David Arnold, Maximillian Götz and Jan Seyffarth continued to lead the Nurburgring 24 with six hours of the race remaining.
Nearing the end of his stint, Alzen had to weather a storm from the No. 4 Black Falcon Mercedes of Adam Christodoulou, which set the fastest lap of the race on Lap 92 shortly before pitting.
Behind them, the No. 29 HTP Mercedes driven by Christian Hohenadel was due to inherit the lead once Haribo made their stop. HTP had leapfrogged ahead of the No. 9 Black Falcon of Maro Engel in the pits, having ran nose-to-tail through traffic for several laps.
The No. 100 BMW M6 GT3 of John Edwards, Jens Klingmann, Martin Tomczyk and Lucas Luhr had been running between third and fifth as the pitstops cycled through, but was eliminated by a spinning SP5-class BMW on the Grand Prix Loop.
That meant the No. 912 Manthey Porsche of Michael Christensen inherited fifth, ahead of the No. 23 ROWE BMW which was delayed at the initial race restart when Philipp Eng couldn’t get the car fired.
Audi Sport had a disastrous morning, with three top-10 cars running into problems within half an hour of each other.
Defending event winner Nico Müller in the No. 1 WRT went off on oil, before Markus Winkelhock in the No. 6 Phoenix Audi ran into the back of Land Motorsport’s Connor de Philippi as they slowed for a Code 60, eliminating both cars on the spot.
The best-placed of the Audis was the No. 2 WRT of Stuart Leonard in seventh position.