Emely De Heus scores second rookie podium in PCC Germany

Emely de Heus fought through a challenging weekend at the Nürburgring, fifth round of the 2025 Porsche Carrera Cup Germany, securing her second rookie podium with a solid Race 1, in her best finish since her home round at Zandvoort.

Photo credits: Porsche AG

Emely de Heus fought through a challenging weekend at the Nürburgring, fifth round of the 2025 Porsche Sixt Carrera Cup Germany, securing her second rookie podium with a solid Race 1, in her best finish since her home round at Zandvoort, where she had claimed her first class podium.

De Heus is contesting her rookie Porsche Carrera Cup Germany season in 2025 with ID Racing, becoming the first woman in over a decade to commit to a full campaign in the championship. The 22-year-old Dutch racer, who is also part of the Porsche Talent Pool, made the switch to GT racing after several years in single-seaters, including campaigns in Spanish F4, W Series, and F1 Academy in 2023 and 2024.

Driving the Porsche 992 GT3 Cup car for the first year, she has shown steady progress across the opening rounds — battling for a rookie podium on her debut at Imola, delivering strong pace at Spa, and securing her best result to date at her home race in Zandvoort with a rookie class podium and a P16 personal best, her first top-20 overall. At the Norisring’s fourth round last time out, De Heus faced the unique challenges of the short, fast street circuit. After an unlucky retirement in Race 1, she bounced back in Race 2 with a determined drive, gaining five positions to finish P23.

In one of the world’s most competitive one-make GT series, De Heus continues to build experience, and the Nürburgring Sprint layout provided another opportunity to gain valuable mileage at the fifth round of the season.

Her weekend started with building speed over practice. After a Thursday test day, De Heus completed 30 laps with a best time of 1:30.220, finding almost two seconds on Friday’s official practice. In qualifying, Emely set a 1:30.853 in Q1 to go 26th fastest, then improved to a 1:30.139 on her final attempt in Q2 to again secure 26th on the grid for Race 2. While still with time to find, she was closer to the pace of the cars ahead.

Saturday’s first race would require a recovery drive for Emely, starting P26. As the second half of the season got underway and the lights went out, the field made it cleanly through the tight Turn 1. Emely gained one spot at Turn 2 as Sacha Norden hit trouble and collided with Kas Haverkort. Moments later, Sören Spreng went off, picked up damage, and had to retire. After one lap, De Heus was up to P24 and crucially into third in the rookie class.

She stayed close to Ahmad AlShehab and held a comfortable margin over Norden — leader in the rookie standings — now over seven seconds behind in the battle for the rookie podium.

De Heus picked up another position when Flynt Schuring’s Schumacher CLRT car pitted after contact. Running 1:31.7 lap times, she needed to keep pushing as Norden was gaining ground. Rookie leader Warhurst was then pushed off at the chicane but rejoined, dropping to 15th overall while remaining second in class.

Finding more speed, De Heus dipped under the 1:31 barrier and extended the gap to Norden, staying close to AlShehab. Both moved ahead of Senna van Soelen when he pitted with damage.

The Dutchwoman maintained a strong pace in the 1:30s over the following laps, the gap to Norden growing to over ten seconds. She then chased Michael Essmann, who had fallen behind AlShehab, and gained another place overall when Jan Seyffarth dropped back.

De Heus ultimately crossed the chequered flag in P21 overall, claiming her second rookie podium of the season - and her best overall result since the Zandvoort's points-paying result.

Sunday brought sunny conditions for the final race of the weekend, with Emely aiming to repeat her clean drive from Saturday and again reach the rookie podium — though she would once more have to recover from P26.

On cold tyres, De Heus locked up into Turn 1 and ran deep but still picked up a position when Alex Hardt spun. Now in clean air, she began to close the gap to AlShehab, lapping in 1:31.8 before improving to a 1:31.0 and catching the pack by lap three.

Unfortunately, her luck ran out when she went off at Turn 5 and into the tyre barrier, forcing her to retire and bringing out the Safety Car.

It was an unlucky end to the weekend, which nevertheless featured a positive Race 1 result and her second rookie podium of the year. The next round will be at the Sachsenring, Germany, on 22–24 August.