Mercedes left the Nürburgring with the trophy, but the story everyone will remember is how quickly a seemingly nailed-on win for Max Verstappen’s crew turned into a long, slow walk back to the garage.
For much of the 24 Hours, the #3 Mercedes had the kind of pace and control that makes endurance racing look deceptively simple. Daniel Juncadella took the start and was immediately thrown into the sort of opening-hour chaos the Nordschleife specialises in: a Lamborghini hit with a jump-start penalty, another nursing a puncture, and the usual frantic reshuffling as cars trip over traffic and dust their way through the first stint. Juncadella briefly rose as high as second before a moment in the dirt knocked his momentum and dropped the car into the pack again.
Then Verstappen climbed aboard for what had been billed as a hotly anticipated debut, and the tone changed. By the six-hour mark he’d hauled the #3 into the lead, and not with the conservative, risk-managed approach you sometimes see when a star drops into an endurance race. His double stint was full-blooded: a pass on the #47 Mercedes-AMG with two wheels brushing the grass, a committed move on the #911 Porsche into the first corner, and a double overtake down Döttinger Höhe that carved past the leading pair — the #67 Ford Mustang and the #34 Aston Martin — in one statement.
By the time he handed over to Jules Gounon, Verstappen had put 20 seconds between the #3 and the rest. It was the kind of gap that doesn’t win you a 24-hour race on its own, but it does buy you options — and Mercedes looked to be using them well.
The race settled into a two-car Mercedes story at the front as the #80 emerged as the most consistent threat. Lucas Auer’s stint swung the pendulum again with a brave move around the outside of Schwedenkreuz to retake the lead from Fabian Schiller in the #80. There were warnings, too: Verstappen had a 270km/h scare as darkness fell, the sort of moment that can end a car, a race, or worse. He came out unscathed, but the Nürburgring had already started reminding everyone that it doesn’t care who you are.
As the night deepened, the #3 and #80 broke away and the fight tightened into something more personal. Verstappen versus Maro Engel became the focal point, and it was as sharp-edged as you’d expect with two factory-backed Mercedes at the business end. Verstappen hunted Engel down and passed him on Döttinger Höhe, Engel tried to hit straight back, and then came the kind of heart-stopper that sums up the Nordschleife’s unique insanity: two Mercedes arriving at the end of the straight at around 270km/h, with slower cars ahead and both leaders choosing opposite sides to avoid traffic.
They made contact. Doors banged, Engel was shoved onto the grass on approach to the Hohenrain chicane, and somehow he kept it all pointing roughly in the right direction. No spin, no wrecked bodywork, no safety car — just Engel rejoining still second, and a quiet, collective exhale from a paddock that knows how quickly “that was close” becomes “that’s the race over”.
By dawn, the #3 still looked like the reference car. Gounon and then Auer rotated through cleanly, and even an oil spill at Aremberg — which sent several runners skating into the gravel — was negotiated without drama by the two leading Mercedes. Elsewhere, the Dacia Logan that had picked up a cult following did its best to steal the show, apparently dead at one point, then defiantly reappearing with around 90 minutes left. The Nürburgring always has room for a side plot.
With roughly that same amount of time remaining, the #3 Mercedes led by more than 30 seconds when Verstappen pitted to end another stint and handed the car back to Juncadella. At that stage, it felt like the final phase: manage the gaps, avoid penalties, keep it on the road, bring it home.
Three laps later, it unravelled.
Juncadella was back in the pitlane almost immediately, the #3 returning with its right-rear wheel off and the situation clearly beyond a quick fix. In endurance racing you learn to read body language as much as lap times, and Juncadella climbing out told you everything. The diagnosis was driveshaft damage, and not the kind you patch with a hurried component change and a prayer. The #3 dropped down the order, the garage lights suddenly harsh and accusatory.
And just like that, one Mercedes’ failure became another’s open door. The #80 inherited the lead and, crucially, did what title-winning endurance teams do: it didn’t flinch.
There was still theoretical pressure. The #84 Lamborghini looked like it could become a late nuisance until an 86-second penalty for a Code 60 infringement — later adjusted to one minute 24 seconds added to its time — turned its race into a fight for recovery rather than a straight duel for the win. Up front, the #80 built a buffer of several minutes, while the weather did its usual Eifel trick of refusing to stay consistent. Drizzle returned in the final half hour and the track went greasy again, forcing the kind of tyre call that can make heroes or headlines.
Winward Racing’s #80 made the calm choice, bolting on intermediates with the radar hinting at worse to come. Engel brought it home through worsening conditions to seal victory — a win that will look comfortable on paper, but only because the chaos landed elsewhere when it mattered.
Behind, the podium fight found one last twist. The #34 Aston Martin appeared set for second until a late Code 60 swung the maths back toward that penalised #84 Lamborghini, which clung onto P2 by just 16 seconds.
The #3 Mercedes did make it back out to take the finish, Juncadella nursing it home, but there was no disguising what it felt like: an entry that had controlled the race in daylight, traded punches at 270km/h in the dark, and then watched a mechanical failure erase the payoff in the closing hour.
Mercedes still won. Verstappen’s team, on the evidence of the first 23 hours, might have been the one everyone expected to. That’s the Nürburgring 24 Hours, though — it doesn’t do happy endings on demand.
