Manthey EMA finished the first race of the 2025 Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS) in third place. DTM teammates Thomas Preining (Austria) and Ayhancan Güven (Turkey) drove the Grello Porsche with starting number 911 at the 70th ADAC Westfalenfahrt and secured their first podium finish in the first race of the season, just like last year. This means that Manthey is seamlessly continuing its successful streak, which started in the 2024 season.
On Friday, the team was able to gain valuable experience for the race the following day during the first nine hours of testing at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife in 2025, in sunny weather. In qualifying for the first NLS race, the correct tire choice on the track, which was still partly damp, played a crucial role. But in the crucial window for the Porsche 911 GT3 R and its tires, the team was unable to set the desired lap time due to an unfortunate Code 60 phase during the 90-minute session and qualified in 16th place. With the track drying out after rain just before the start of the race, the teams’ tire strategies were once again a deciding factor.
Thomas Preining, who started on cutted slicks that had been fitted to the car at the last minute, was involved in an incident on the first lap through no fault of his own, causing the Grello Porsche to spin without being damaged. Thanks to the team’s strategically correct tire choice, Preining managed to move up to sixth position despite his spin and handed over to teammate Güven after the first quarter of the race.
At the halfway point, Güven was in second position and passed the cockpit over to Preining for the last hour of the race. After 28 laps, the 911 GT3 R finally crossed the finish line in third place, securing the first podium finish of the new season. The series of podium finishes in the Green Hell, which began for the team at the first NLS race last year and continued until the last NLS race in November 2024, will thus continue.
“The race today was eventful: At the start, we were one of the few teams to make the right tire decision with the cutted slick, which, crazy as it may seem, turned out to be bad luck afterwards, because it meant that we were offset from the rest of the field on the track and during the tyre changes. As a result, we were disadvantaged by Code 60 phases several times, while other cars were not, which cost us over a minute. Nevertheless, we had two good days on the Nordschleife. We learned a lot and the drivers covered some important kilometres. Third place is obviously also a good result to start the season.
Congratulations to Morris, who took his first win on the Nordschleife after finishing second with us last year!”, explains Nicolas Raeder, Managing Director of the Manthey Racing GmbH. “Unfortunately, we had bad luck with the Code 60 phases today – it’s a bit upsetting after we made a clever tire choice as a team before the race started. We had the pace for a better result, but we can still be very satisfied with third position. We were able to learn a lot and it was also good preparation for our drivers to race in mixed conditions. This has given us confidence and we are looking forward to the next race and then, of course, to the highlight of the year, the 24-hour race,” adds Patrick Arkenau, Division Manager Racing at the Manthey Racing GmbH.
The next outing for the Porsche 911 GT3 R, starting with the number 911 on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, will be in the second round of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, which will take place on 26 April 2025. On the same weekend, the team will also kick-off the 2025 DTM season for the first time with three cars.
