Max Verstappen's Masterclass Puts Team in Victory Contention at Nurburgring 24 Hours
Max Verstappen delivered a masterclass performance that has placed his team in a strong position for a debut victory at the Nurburgring 24 Hours. The #3 Mercedes, shared by Verstappen, Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon, and Lucas Auer, currently leads the #80 AMG (driven by Maxime Martin, Maro Engel, Fabian Schiller, and Luca Stolz) by approximately a second after nearly nine hours of intense racing.
The race has been a wild ride with unpredictable weather conditions typical of the Nordschleife. However, the Verstappen Racing Mercedes has maintained a strong pace as the night stint continues. Starting in fourth place, the team made a significant move early on when Juncadella took second on the opening lap, overtaking Christopher Haase (Scherer Audi) before polesitter Mirko Bortolotti suffered a puncture.
This incident occurred after the Lamborghini was tagged by the #3 AMG at Turn 2, which Abt boss Martin Tomczyk described as “not acceptable.” However, it was ruled a racing incident. Things only got worse for Abt as its sister Huracan, which started second, received a 32-second penalty at the end of the first hour due to a jump start for Marco Mapelli.
Juncadella finished his stint in third, having dropped from second to fourth due to traffic issues, with Verstappen taking over the Mercedes after 60 minutes. This marked a turning point for Verstappen Racing, as the four-time Formula 1 world champion remained patient behind traffic before launching attacks.
Amid overtaking cars that had yet to pit, having joined the track in 10th, Verstappen took net second from Christian Engelhart (Konrad Lamborghini) down the inside of Sabine Schmitz Kurve. Thomas Preining in the Manthey Racing Porsche was next in Verstappen’s sights. After once again overtaking traffic, the Dutchman finally managed to overtake the 911, now driven by Ayhancan Güven, down the inside of Turn 1 while rain began to fall for the first time.
This did not affect Verstappen, who was setting lap times that no one could match, allowing him to end his two-hour stint with a 23-second advantage over the Porsche. “Initially I was a bit stuck in traffic,” said Verstappen, “so it was a bit difficult to clear the cars. But once I cleared a few of them and then the weather kicked in with a few laps of slippery conditions, that's I think where we made a difference. And then the car was good. Trying to stay out of trouble, but at the same time you have to push and you have to try and be on the limit, which is always, I think, a difficult compromise to find, but it worked out fine.”
His efforts were slightly undone in the next stint, as Gounon struggled for pace with Estre (in for Guven) cutting the gap to six seconds in 20 minutes. Suddenly, the 2024 World Endurance Championship champion encountered an oil spill at Brunnchen, causing the Porsche to spin out almost four hours into the contest.
Although the initial assumption was that Verstappen Racing now held a huge advantage, others soon closed in on Gounon, who was overtaken by three cars in overall contention. These included Christian Krognes (Walkenhorst Aston Martin), Schiller, and Connor de Phillippi (Schubert BMW) amid a stint that the 31-year-old called "difficult" with rain falling harder.
Thankfully for Verstappen Racing, they managed to re-overtake the Aston and BMW through the pitstops, before Gounon’s co-driver Auer overtook Schiller to give the #3 Mercedes the overall lead again. But that didn’t last long as Stolz, in for Schiller, moved past Auer at the end of the seventh hour, though was then overtaken by Juncadella midway through the ninth hour.
Currently in third place is the Walkenhorst Aston Martin driven by Nicki Thiim, while Jens Klingmann (Schubert BMW) and Max Hesse (Rowe BMW) complete the top five.
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