Following our initial two parts, the obvious question remains: Who is in the right, and who is in the wrong? Who is good, and who is bad?
As is so often the case, there is no black-and-white answer, as the situation looks entirely different depending on the perspective you take.
Perspective A: The fear of ADAC Nordrhein
With the 24-Hour race, ADAC Nordrhein holds the absolute crown jewel of all Nurburgring events. Max Verstappen’s participation in 2026 sent enthusiasm through the roof. But this creates fears: the more valuable your asset, the more you can lose.
ADAC Nordrhein is deeply concerned that it will no longer receive the 24-Hour race date as a given right from the Nurburgring, but will instead be forced to compete against rival bidders in a public tender.
Depending on the final ruling in the main court proceedings of VLN against Nurburgring, the venue could be forced to distribute the date on a rotational basis, leaving Nordrhein with the 24h date only every two or three years.
At first glance, this rationale might sound absurd: why would the VLN, SRO, the main ADAC in Munich (the DTM promoter), Creventic, or any other party suddenly apply for circuit slots to organise a 24-hour race on the Nordschleife?
Motorsport.com Germany has received written confirmation from both SRO and Creventic that they currently have no plans whatsoever to host a race on the Nordschleife.
Structure and interconnections in endurance racing at the Nürburgring
Photo by: Motorsport Network
But there is a running joke in the paddock that VLN itself could step up as the promoter of the 24-Hour race. While that notion triggers immense amusement among VLN stakeholders, political pragmatism dictates: hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
By founding its own series, ADAC Nordrhein sees an opportunity to safeguard itself against such a worst-case scenario by pre-empting other potential interested parties. Whether the new series becomes a commercial hit is secondary to ADAC Nordrhein; its primary objective is securing the future of the 24-hour race for itself. In doing so, ADAC Nordrhein becomes the third promoter operating an endurance series on the Nordschleife.
ADAC Nordrhein did secure one notable victory: a new four-year TV deal with RTL, including parts of the race being broadcast on RTL’s main channel. However, ADAC Nordrhein undoubtedly would have preferred entering those negotiations with a 10-year agreement with the circuit in hand.
From ADAC Nordrhein’s point of view, the VLN’s organisational structure – governed by local motor clubs whose chairmen are often well into retirement age – is no longer fit for purpose.
Nordrhein maintains that administrative structures must evolve alongside a sport where top-class teams operate on multi-million-euro budgets. In its eyes, the VLN remains stubborn and resistant to reform.
Furthermore, ADAC Nordrhein took offense when the VLN reportedly made clear in negotiations that it was doing ADAC Nordrhein a favour by supplying grid entries into the 24h Qualifiers for what had been an underperforming event. After all, Nordrhein had enabled an eight-race NLS calendar in the critical 2024 season by integrating the Qualifiers in the first place.
It is said that ADAC Nordrhein made one final offer to VLN prior to announcing its own series, which included an NLS race slot positioned between the 24h Qualifiers and the 24-Hour race – something that had previously been contractually excluded. No agreement was reached.
Perspective B: VLN/NLS’s point of view
VLN’s stance is straightforward: It simply wants to continue doing what it has done for 50 years – grassroots motorsport with a professional pinnacle. For the clubs forming the VLN, the goal is to generate modest returns to keep their club activities, like karting, going.
VLN feels fully justified in its approach. Despite Germany enduring a years-long severe economic downturn, NLS managed to stop the decline in entries last year, and 2026 is shaping up to be the strongest season in terms of entries since the pandemic.
NLS cannot simply withdraw from the ongoing court proceedings that both ADAC Nordrhein and the circuit owner NR Holding want to see resolved.
Doing so would risk a repeat of summer 2023, when NLS faced a total exclusion from the Nordschleife. So, its organiser VLN wants an ironclad, legally binding agreement.
Here, the aforementioned political principle applies, too: even if an agreement were reached with the current circuit operator, what happens if ADAC Nordrhein were to buy the Nurburgring at some point in the future? Long-term date guarantees must remain secure against any eventuality.
As part of its customer-service initiative, VLN has eliminated several longstanding operational bottlenecks, and core administrative tasks have been centralised into a permanent head office operating standard business hours.
“The argument that we operate unprofessionally simply no longer holds weight,” a VLN representative told Motorsport.com Germany. “In terms of race control consistency, ADAC Nordrhein was actually less consistent than us across two events.”
When ADAC Nordrhein withdrew from its joint title sponsorship alongside ADAC Mittelrhein and ADAC Westfalen, VLN absorbed financial losses on the 24h-Qualifiers to ensure they counted toward the championship, even though most competitors preferred fewer races. In the VLN’s view, it effectively subsidised ADAC Nordrhein to boost entries for the Qualifiers.
For now, the VLN is deliberately avoiding adding fuel to the fire by not criticising ADAC Nordrhein during its broadcast of the six-hour race, with sources indicating VLN’s openness to a fair settlement.
However, NLS is ready to fight and is planning an eight-race calendar for 2027. It previously killed NES using soft power, when marshals and competitors simply refused to participate in the new series.
The underlying logic: even financially potent organisations like ADAC Nordrhein can’t afford to run races with 15 cars indefinitely, which was the actual entry number for the cancelled 2024 NES debut.
Perspective C: Is the Nurburgring just a bystander?
Unlike the initial Nurburgring dispute, where circuit owner NR Holding was a central protagonist, track management views itself as a bystander this time – at least officially.
Nurburgring 1927 GmbH & Co. KG, headed by former VLN managing director Christian Stephani and 99% owned by NR Holding, would strongly prefer a single endurance championship, as two competing series create operational complexity without adding value.
The circuit’s primary objective, as noted in previous instalments, is stripping away the “Essential Facility” legal status – a consequence of its own massive misstep in 2023 when NR Holding attempted to banish NLS from the Green Hell.
Thus, circuit management presents itself as a passive observer in this renewed power struggle, bound by law to allocate track dates without discrimination.
Another key priority for the circuit is avoiding an excessive number of applicants, which would eventually create severe slot availability conflicts. For instance, Manthey threw its hat into the ring as a fourth applicant during the current dispute, though it subsequently withdrew its request.
Not everyone in the paddock believes NR Holding is genuinely passive. Rumours are circulating – currently to be treated purely as such – suggesting NR Holding harbours a desire for revenge against VLN, following the announcement of a long-term partnership between the Nurburgring and ADAC through 2028 back in January 2025.
Other voices point to efforts by NR Holding to drive a wedge between regional ADAC clubs and applying a “divide and conquer” approach against the dominant ADAC.
Whether such tactics are necessary remains questionable. Friction between ADAC Nordrhein and Westfalen is already significant enough that track management could simply sit back and watch. Furthermore, a personal vendetta against VLN would yield zero commercial benefit for the circuit.
Perspective D: Competitors and marshals
The statement from the ILN team association was unequivocal. Teams and drivers are thoroughly exhausted by another short-notice disruption, just like with the NES.
Commercial partners and sponsors are growing uneasy over the prospect of renewed uncertainty, causing teams to freeze their expansion plans. ILN is deeply aggrieved that a thriving endurance scene has been needlessly dragged into yet another crisis marked by negative headlines.
ILN rejects ADAC Nordrhein’s new endurance series – for 2027. It calls for a unified endurance championship involving all parties, though without explicitly insisting that it must be the NLS.
However, conversations indicate that relations between the ILN and ADAC Nordrhein have not improved in talks during the 6-hour race. The vast majority of competitors currently back NLS, dismissing the Nordrhein series as a “stunt.”
The usual resounding call across the paddock remains clear, even if it is likely to fall on deaf ears: “Sit down and reach an agreement, dammit!”
Most teams operate as commercial businesses, where trust and stability are paramount. Both have now been shaken to their core once again.
If push comes to shove, most current drivers intend to stay loyal to the NLS. Commercially oriented teams summarise their position logically: “We race wherever our paying customers want to race.” And right now, customer sentiment leans heavily toward NLS.
Then there are the major factory-supported GT3 teams—precisely the entities ADAC Nordrhein aims to recruit by offering a fully integrated, single-source event structure. Furthermore, these teams generate the highest entry fee revenues for NLS. Losing them would deal NLS a heavy financial blow.
However, there is a catch: unless conducting tyre development or testing new GT3 machinery on the Nordschleife, factory-backed squads’ interest outside the main event is almost exclusively confined to the preparation races leading up to the 24-Hour race. Once the 24-Hour race concludes, they disappear.
Among track marshals, the sentiment is less absolute than during the NES boycott. An outright refusal to officiate does not appear to be on the table this time.
Nevertheless, conversations with track personnel indicate a strong desire to retain the smaller cars, whereas ADAC Nordrhein is widely suspected of intending to phase out lower classes over time.
Ever since NES had to cancel its scheduled May 2024 race due to a shortage of marshals, the power of the marshals has become common knowledge.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com
