Max Verstappen hasn’t just turned up to the Nürburgring 24 Hours for a cameo — he’s been a defining part of the race’s rhythm, and as the event pushed into its final third Team Verstappen’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 still looks like the car everyone else is reacting to.
Through the night it got tense. Not in the slow-burn, manage-the-gap sense either, but the kind of tension that comes when the lead battle stops being a spreadsheet exercise and becomes a question of who blinks first on the Nordschleife in the dark. Verstappen and Maro Engel spent a chunk of the night locked together at the sharp end, and it ended with Engel running off at high speed as they fought over the lead. It was the sort of moment that can flip an endurance race on its head in seconds — the difference between “controlling” and “surviving”.
Team Verstappen survived it, and that’s what matters.
What’s struck paddock regulars about the #3 operation is how quickly it has been able to reset after the drama. Jules Gounon cycled in after Verstappen, then the car handed over to Lucas Auer as dawn arrived — the timing that always feels like a psychological checkpoint at the ‘Ring. When the light returns, you find out who’s merely made it through the night and who’s actually got something in hand.
By the time the sun was properly up, the #3 Mercedes had started doing what the best Nürburgring cars do: stretching the race without looking like it’s stretching. With eight hours remaining, Auer’s advantage sat at roughly 20 seconds over the sister #80 Mercedes in second, the pair still under the Winward Racing banner. Twenty seconds isn’t a fortress around here — not with traffic, code 60s and the place’s habit of punishing the smallest lapse — but it’s enough breathing room to put the pressure back on the chaser. The lead car can choose its moments; the second car has to manufacture them.
Elsewhere, the night reminded everyone how quickly the Nordschleife can turn into a lottery when conditions change. An oil spill at Aremberg triggered a messy sequence that spat a number of cars off the road and into the gravel. The leaders escaped the scene without incident, which is often half the battle at this race: it’s not only about being quick, it’s about being quick at the right time, in the right place, while everyone else is busy losing time in someone else’s chaos.
Behind the two leading Mercedes, the podium fight has been scrappier and more fluid. The #99 BMW M4 GT3 EVO and the #34 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 EVO have been trading third with an edge that suggests neither side fancies waiting for strategy to do the job for them. At this stage, every swap feels like a message: we’re still here, we’re still close enough, and if you want the last word you’ll have to earn it in traffic.
Fifth, and quietly becoming one of the storylines people keep checking in on, is the SPX-class BMW M3 Touring — the one-off estate that’s running M4 hardware underneath. It’s exactly the kind of Nürburgring entry that can become a folk hero if it hangs around on the timing screens long enough, and right now it’s doing more than just circulating.
After 16 hours completed, the top 10 stood as follows:
1. #3 Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Auer) – Lap 102
2. #80 Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Schiller) – +14.898
3. #34 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 EVO (Krognes) – Lap 101
4. #99 BMW M4 GT3 EVO (Harper) – +0.619
5. #81 BMW M3 Touring 24h (de Wilde) – +25.102
6. #84 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 (Engstler) – +27.215
7. #24 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) Evo26 (Heinrich) – +2:24.740
8. #54 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) Evo26 (Christensen) – Lap 100
9. #26 Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Lulham) – +2:54.978
10. #11 Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Ellis) – +3:37.876
The shape of the race, though, still comes back to that #3 Mercedes and the way it’s handled the most volatile part of the event. Plenty can still happen — it always can here — but Team Verstappen has already cleared one of the biggest hurdles: getting through the night at the front without the race being taken from them in an instant.
Now comes the harder part, in its own way: resisting the temptation to drive the next eight hours like it’s a sprint, and instead finishing the job in a place that rarely allows anyone to feel comfortable for long.
