Max Verstappen’s first Nürburgring 24 Hours is already delivering the full Nordschleife experience: a quick car, volatile weather, traffic that never seems to end, and rivals disappearing in the space of a few corners.
Early on Saturday, Verstappen climbed into the #3 Mercedes-AMG GT3 to take over from Daniel Juncadella after the opening hour. By the time the race ticked towards the three-hour mark, the four-time Formula 1 world champion had put himself where you’d expect him to be — right at the sharp end, making decisive progress in the messy, multi-class churn rather than waiting for the race to come to him.
He didn’t inherit the lead by default, either. Verstappen’s jump from third to first came in a heartbeat, helped by drama for the #16 Audi (Christopher Haase, Alexander Sims and Ben Green). Sims, seemingly caught out in a slow zone, made contact with another car and damaged the front-right corner. The situation deteriorated quickly when the bonnet lifted, forcing him to limp back to the pits. The Rowe Racing squad later confirmed the Audi wouldn’t return due to the extent of the damage — one of the headline contenders simply erased.
That’s endurance racing’s constant threat at the Nürburgring: you can be “in” the race for 23 hours and 50 minutes, and then a single misread of a yellow, a closing-speed misjudgement, or a moment of poor visibility ends it. The margins are brutal, especially when conditions start turning.
Verstappen’s stint had its own reminder. At one point the Mercedes became briefly airborne before glancing the Armco — the kind of moment that looks innocuous on timing screens but feels huge at the wheel on the Nordschleife. Verstappen owned it with typical bluntness afterwards, saying he’d turned in too early. No theatrics, just a reset and back to work.
“It was good,” he said on the official Nürburgring 24 Hours feed. “Initially, I was a bit stuck in traffic so it was a bit difficult to clear the cars, but once I cleared a few [it was better].
“Then the weather kicked in with a few laps of slippery conditions, I think that’s 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.
“It’s always a difficult compromise to find but it worked out fine.”
That “compromise” is the whole event in a sentence. GT3 pace is one thing; threading it through slower traffic for lap after lap while the grip level moves around underneath you is where the Nürburgring starts taking payment. Verstappen sounded comfortable with that reality, but he also knows the race was only beginning to show its teeth.
The second big name to run into trouble was the #911 Porsche. After Verstappen’s double stint ended and Jules Gounon took over in the #3 Mercedes, Kevin Estre was closing rapidly — until he lost control and hit the barriers, damaging the rear. Estre initially got going again, only to stop further around the circuit.
Moments later the #64 Ford, driven by Arjun Maini, crashed at the same spot, heavily damaging the front of the car. Two separate incidents, same section of track, in quick succession: a pretty clear sign that the circuit was changing faster than some drivers could recalibrate.
The chaos also shuffled the order up front. The #3 Mercedes lost the lead amid the drama, with Gounon caught out by a particularly cautious run to the end of the lap in difficult conditions. Dennis Olsen, in the #67 Ford, pounced and edged clear — holding a 14-second advantage over Gounon at the time of publication.
For Verstappen, the job now shifts from early-race aggression to the long game: avoiding penalty-worthy mistakes in traffic, keeping the car clean through the changing weather, and being ready for the night stint when the Nordschleife feels twice as narrow and the consequences of a small error arrive twice as fast.
“Slowly getting ready,” Verstappen said when asked about returning to the cockpit after dark. “[It’s] not only the night, also seeing what the weather will do in terms of how much rain is coming down. I think the coming hours are going to be very challenging.”
They always are here. But with two major rivals already out and Verstappen’s car still in the fight, the #3 crew has exactly what you need at the Nürburgring: a shot — and enough time left for the place to test it properly.
