Max Verstappen has spent long enough being the reference point in Formula 1 that it’s easy to forget how rarely he has to be the one asking questions. But that’s exactly the dynamic inside Verstappen Racing’s Nürburgring 24 Hours garage this weekend: a four-time world champion arriving as the new guy, leaning on teammates who’ve made a living out of surviving — and winning — races that last through an entire day and night.
The line-up tells you immediately this isn’t a vanity entry. Verstappen is sharing the Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Daniel Juncadella, Lucas Auer and Jules Gounon, three drivers who know the rhythms of endurance racing and the Nordschleife’s particular brand of chaos. Their car will start fourth after Juncadella delivered in Friday’s decisive Top Qualifying 3 session, and the Spaniard will also take the opening stint.
That grid spot matters more than endurance racing traditionalists like to admit. Yes, 24 hours will reorder everything eventually. But at the Nürburgring, the first hour can be as influential as the last: traffic arrives instantly, multi-class incidents are never far away, and getting trapped in the wrong train early can quietly ruin the “clean race” every contender talks about in the build-up.
Juncadella was frank that the target was always to place themselves in the front group. Fourth, he said, was mission accomplished — even if it still felt like there might’ve been a little more on the table.
“It was a good session,” he explained. “Our goal was obviously to be in the top five, if possible, because, even if it’s a 24-hour race, it’s good to be in the front group. A lot of things can happen early in the race, so this race is all about staying with the leaders as much as you can.
“We had a shot, obviously, at pole as well. We’ve been competitive all week… only fourth, but I’m really happy with that effort. It was a tricky session with some slippery patches. We maximised it.”
While Verstappen has kept his own counsel, skipping media commitments around the event, his teammates have carried the attention — and with the grandstands and paddock lanes inevitably magnetised by the presence of a current F1 superstar, they’ve had plenty of it.
The interesting part is that the Verstappen hype doesn’t appear to have changed the internal tone. If anything, it’s sharpened the focus: they’re here to race, not to circulate. Juncadella’s language made that clear; so did Gounon’s.
“The dream is to win,” Juncadella said. “I can only be happy if we are winning this race on Sunday.”
Gounon put it another way — a little more romantic, and very Nürburgring. “I’m pretty sure that Max doesn’t come just for a podium,” he said, “but at the end of the day, you need to be very humble. I really truly believe that in a place like the Nordschleife… the place chooses its winner. So I just hope that the Green Hell is going to take care of us.”
If Verstappen’s relative inexperience is the obvious talking point, the team doesn’t sound particularly worried about it — even when you get onto the topics that normally bite rookies here: the night, the weather, the relentless variety of corners, cambers and sight lines.
One teammate summed up the Verstappen factor with a grin. “I don’t think many things have an effect on Max, to be honest!” he laughed. “The more I see him drive, the more I see how incredible he is.”
That confidence comes despite a build-up that hasn’t been entirely smooth. Verstappen’s endurance preparation has been built around a run of four-hour races in recent months, but an attempt to add more night mileage at NLS5 last month was derailed when the event was cancelled following the tragic fatal accident involving Juha Miettinen. Verstappen did, at least, get a taste of the conditions he’ll face, taking part in Thursday night’s Qualifying 2 in wet, dark conditions.
Those around him talk about adaptability more than mileage — the idea that Verstappen’s baseline speed and feel compress the learning curve. The night element, in particular, isn’t being treated as a looming weakness, more as a box to tick.
“You go out, it’s raining like crazy,” his teammate said, recalling Thursday. “There was a bit of fog, there was a steam from the tarmac from the rain… but I think he will get to it in the race. He’s young, he has good vision! I’m pretty sure he’s gonna be okay. It’s just for him, it’s gonna be something new… quite funny for a four-time F1 World Champion to go somewhere and say I’m a rookie.”
If there’s a technical comfort blanket here, it’s the car. Both Juncadella and Gounon talked up the Mercedes-AMG GT3 not as a diva that needs pampering, but as a package without obvious vices — exactly what you want when the circuit is 20.8 kilometres of consequences.
“The Mercedes AMG is a very good all-around car,” Gounon said, drawing on experience across multiple GT3 brands. His verdict was that it rarely tops any single category, but it’s always near the front everywhere: grip, braking, steering feel, aero. And, yes, he admitted he loves the V8’s torque and sound — a fan-pleaser that still feels at home in an era increasingly short on theatre.
Juncadella agreed with the same theme: not the ultimate in one metric, but strong in all of them. At the Nordschleife, that breadth is performance — because it’s never just one thing. It’s cold tyres into a fast section, then a slow, bumpy compression, then traffic, then a damp patch under trees you won’t see until you’re committed.
The other element they can’t control is the circus outside the garage. Gounon acknowledged the Verstappen effect has made even basic movement harder — “normally it doesn’t take you five minutes to enter the box” — but he didn’t frame it as a burden. If anything, he sounded like he enjoyed seeing a crowd that can get close enough to feel part of it, a contrast to the barriers — literal and financial — that often separate F1 from its audience.
Now comes the part the Nordschleife always demands: patience. They’ve qualified where they wanted to be, they believe in the car, and they trust the blend of endurance experience with Verstappen’s raw class. After that, it’s the usual bargain with the Green Hell — keep it clean, keep it moving, keep it out of trouble, and hope the track “takes care of you” rather than the other way around.
