Max Verstappen’s debut at the Nurburgring 24 Hours ended in absolute heartbreak as a late mechanical problem handed victory to the sister Winward Mercedes.
The #3 AMG, which Verstappen shared with Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon and Lucas Auer, enjoyed a healthy lead of more than 10 seconds until it all went wrong with three hours remaining.
It came as Juncadella received an ABS alarm, which he initially thought he could manage, but then “noises and vibrations” emerged from the cockpit causing him to pit two laps later.
Mercedes diagnosed the problem as a driveshaft failure on the rear right, resulting in the #80 AMG of Maro Engel, Maxime Martin, Fabian Schiller and Luca Stolz claiming the win.
The issue therefore put a bittersweet ending on an otherwise dominant race for the German marque, despite the #3 and #80 respectively qualifying fourth and 25th – Engel crashed in qualifying.
Both enjoyed strong getaways though, particularly Juncadella who overtook Scherer Audi’s Christopher Haase before gaining another position on the opening lap.
That came via a puncture for the polesitting Lamborghini after it was tagged by the #3 Mercedes at Turn 2, but it was nothing more than a racing incident despite complaints from Abt boss Martin Tomczyk.
#1 Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II: Christopher Haase, Luca Ludwig, Markus Winkelhock
Photo by: Gruppe C GmbH
His woes intensified as its sister Huracan, which was also on the front row, was given a 32s penalty for a jump start allowing Juncadella to finish his stint in third after dropping from second to fourth due to troubles negating traffic.
Verstappen was the man to replace him after 60 minutes and the four-time Formula 1 world champion subsequently delivered a performance masterclass to vault his car into contention.
He remained patient behind traffic before launching attacks on Christian Engelhart (Konrad Lamborghini) for net second and Ayhancan Guven (Manthey Porsche) for first amid also lapping traffic as rain began falling.
The Dutchman ultimately ended his stint with a 23s lead after three hours, an advantage that soon grew due to Kevin Estre crashing the 911 following an oil spill at Brunnchen.
But the gap Verstappen built then dissipated as Gounon struggled for pace, being overtaken by Christian Krognes (Walkenhorst Aston Martin), Schiller and Connor de Phillippi (Schubert BMW).
The Frenchman called it a “difficult” stint but thankfully for Verstappen Racing, it re-overtook the Aston and BMW via the pitstops before Auer launched an attack on Schiller around six hours in.
From this point onwards, the Mercedes duo was dominant in the dry, the #80 getting up there thanks to good strategy and staying out of trouble, as they constantly squabbled for the overall lead.
#3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing, Mercedes AMG GT3 EVO: Max Verstappen, Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon, Lucas Auer
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
It reached a new level when Verstappen jumped aboard for a second time around the 11th hour, 2am locally, when he very quickly cut a six-second deficit to Engel.
The world champion overtook at Dottinger Hoe before Engel fought back, trying to edge by at Tiergarten on the 12th hour, while they both also tried to overcome traffic.
But Verstappen didn’t yield and while occupying the middle of the road, he and Engel banged wheels causing the #80 Mercedes to take the grass on the right and drop back a couple seconds.
Considering Mercedes was searching for its first Nurburgring 24h win since 2016, the incident caused the German marque to instruct its cars to hold position and secure a dominant 1-2.
That is the way it was going as the #3 AMG built an advantage of more than 20 seconds, while the rest of the grid was minutes behind the top two so Mercedes didn’t need any more hair-raising moments.
But then everything changed around the 21st hour when a driveshaft failure emerged that would ultimately deny Verstappen and co a memorable victory at the Nordschleife.
“That’s it,” said Verstappen, whose co-driver Juncadella denied it was down to banging wheels with Engel, on social media. “A really tough one to take. From the lead, our car suffered a broken driveshaft, ending our fight for the win. Thank you all for your support throughout the weekend.”
The #80 Mercedes was effectively handed the win and crossed the line 1m18s ahead of the polesitting Lamborghini (Mirko Bortolotti, Luca Engstler and Patric Niederhauser) to give the German marque its third victory at the historic event.
Completing the podium was the #34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin (Mattia Drudi, Felipe Fernandez Laser, Krognes and Nick Thiim) with BMW, Porsche and Ford all represented in the remaining top 10 positions.
Last year’s winner (Rowe BMW) retired after approximately eight hours due to a fuel tank issue.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com
