ROWE Leads BMW M4 GT3 Podium Sweep in NLS3

Photo: ROWE Racing

Augusto Farfus and Connor De Phillippi led a historic sweep of the overall podium for the new BMW M4 GT3 in Saturday’s second Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie race of the season.

Farfus took the No. 98 ROWE Racing entry to a narrow 0.582-second win over the Max Hesse, Daniel Harper and Neil Verhagen-driven BMW Junior Team entry in the 53rd Adenauer ADAC Rundstrecken-Trophy.

Farfus got around Hesse with eight minutes to go after hunting down the young German in the closing stages of the race until the final lap when Hesse challenged the Brazilian for the lead, getting alongside the ROWE entry on Döttinger Höhe courtesy of traffic.

Hesse briefly took the lead in the drag race but Farfus regained the position moments later to cross the line for ROWE’s first NLS win since August 2020.

It came after Hesse’s co-driver Harper was forced to serve a drive-through penalty in the second hour for an unknown infraction.

De Phillippi in the pole-sitting BMW led early in the race until the second stint when the Team RMG-run operation took over the lead with 21-year-old Harper at the wheel.

The No. 34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW of Christian Krognes, Andy Soucek and Sami-Matti Trogen completed the podium in third, followed by the Julien Andlauer, Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet-driven No. 27 Toksport WRT Porsche, which was best of the rest in fourth.

ROWE’s sister No. 98 BMW, driven by John Edwards, Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann, completed the top-five in a dominant race for the German manufacturer.

The No. 16 Scherer Sport Team Phoenix Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Jakub Giermaziak and Michele Beretta was sixth followed by the debuting TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage GT3, which ran as high as third in the hands of Maxime Martin before making its final stop.

The four-hour contest, billed as NLS3 despite the postponement of NLS2 due to snow earlier this month, saw an early challenge from the No. 911 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Kevin Estre, who ran in second.

The ‘Grello’ Porsche’s race, however, was done by the second hour when Fred Makowiecki was involved in a multi-car accident at Döttinger Höhe.

Porsche’s challenge was dashed before the start of the race when both of the Falken Motorsports entries were withdrawn due to supply chain issues related to the supply of its tires.

BMW scored a double victory with its debuting M4 GT4 taking top class honors in SP8T in its competition debut.

Phillip Eng and Erik Johansson took the BMW Motorsport-entered car, running un-homolgated as a ‘concept’, to a 24th place finish overall. 

A second new-for-2023 M4 GT4, meanwhile, finished 110th overall after some issues.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John