Verstappen leads Winward 1-2 domination in first half of 2026 N24
- DIVEBOMB Sportscars Team
- 3 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Max Verstappen currently leads the 2026 24 Hours of the Nürburgring in the No.3 Winward Mercedes. Winward have dominated much of the race, as the F1-champion swaps the lead with the sister No.80 car, now driven by Maxime Martin.
Many of their competitors have fallen, with both the No.911 Manthey Porsche and No.16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi falling foul of heavy incidents, among others.
As it happened
At exactly 15:00 local time (14:00 BST) the lights on the pit straight went green and we were away for the 2026 24 Hours of the Nürburgring. Mirko Bortolotti in the No.84 pole-sitting Lamborghini led them to green, but he didn't get away so well.
Marco Mapelli in the sister No.130 got the best getaway from second place, taking the lead before the cars hit the brakes for the first time. However, the stewards found Mapelli to be guilty of a jump start, so that car was handed a 32 second penalty.
Bortolotti dropped back towards Dani Juncadella in the No.3 Verstappen.com Mercedes, and the two made slight contact in turn 2.
It seemed inconsequential, but it turned out the Italian in second place had been given a slow puncture. The tyre finally gave out on the GP loop chicane, giving Bortolotti time to dive into the pits before entering the Nordschleife. The pole car dropped right to the back of start group 1.
The rest moved on around the lap though. Mapelli had a three second lead at the end of the first lap, but the leaders caught traffic halfway around the second lap and the top five were all nose to tail. Juncadella tried a move for the lead, but touched the grass through some traffic and had to back out.
Due to the close nature of that group, he dropped back behind Maximillian Paul in the No.7 Konrad Lamborghini and the No.911 'Grello' Porsche of Kévin Estre to fourth. The new leading trio began to get away from Juncadella afterwards.
They had their own battle through traffic, with Estre getting up the inside of Paul at Eiskurve to take second. Meanwhile a few cars further down the SP9 order had begun their first scheduled stops for fuel.
Paul used the straight line speed of his Lamborghini to take what was the lead of the race from Estre after the No.130 came in to the pits to serve it's penalty.
After the first round of pit stops, the No.45 Ferrari of Thomas Neubauer took the lead of the race after they had a shorter pit stop, since they pit earlier than the rest. The No.911 and No.7 battle re-emerged in seventh and eighth place. Adam Christodulu in the No.26 Mercedes slotted into ninth, with Max Verstappen now in the No.3 car in tenth.
Verstappen did not hang around on his Nürburgring 24h debut, having a huge moment in the Stefan-Bellof-S, lucky to avoid the barrier. He lost time behind the other Mercedes in front, but eventually tucked into the slipstream and slid past the Briton into ninth. A couple of laps later, Verstappen moved his No.3 Mercedes ahead of the No.7 Lamborghini, to take second place of the later pitters, and eighth place overall.
Perhaps a couple of the SP9 drivers did not realise this is a 24 hour race, because 85 minutes in, the No.64 Ford, No.47 Mercedes, No.81 BMW (M3) and the No.911 Porsche went hammer and tongs over fourth place. All four cars managed to stay on track, but the same can't be said for the No.75 max Kruse Racing Audi, which got a puncture and hit the wall hard at Schwedenkreuz.
The high speed section of track was briefly turned into a debris minefield, as the front of the Audi was completely torn apart by the barriers. Thankfully, the driver was okay. A Code 60 zone was put out to deal with the incident, and the race continued on.
The No.75 was the first of many GT3 cars to fall out of the race in the next two hours. The next to hit the fence was the No.45 Realize Kondo Racing by Rinaldi Ferrari. Thierry Vermeulen, fresh out the pits, was overtaking a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4, but put two of his wheels on the grass in the Hatzenbach, lost control of his car and wrecked his front end.
Another upset came when the No.16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi ran into the back of the No.47 KCMG Mercedes on the exit of Pflanzgarten. The incident ruined the race for both cars, although Alexander Sims managed to limp back to the garage.
Before any more chaos, the lead cars pit. Estre hopped back behind the wheel of the No.911 Manthey Porsche, and Jules Gounon took over duties in the No.3 from Verstappen, who had built a 25 second lead.
The biggest upset came four hours in, when Estre lost control of the car in the second part of Brünnchen, hitting the barrier with the tail of his Porsche. Estre, who had recently jumped back into the car, was running second at the time, catching the No.3 Mercedes. With a potentially damaged power train, the Porsche was towed back to the pits and did not return to the race.
Less than a lap later the No.64 Ford went into the barrier at the exact same spot as Estre. The two Brünnchen crashes were confirmed to be caused by a fluid leak from one of the Porsche Cup cars.
At the same time one HRT Ford's race came to the end, the other, the No.67 took the lead from the No.3, who lost time behind the Dacia in a yellow flag zone, and started opening a gap. The No.3 lost another position two laps later to the No.34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin, which pulled into the pits immediately after.
The No.67 HRT was unfortunately unable to keep the lead, as it had a long stop and lost a few minutes.
As the race played out, the front runners proved to be the No.34 Aston Martin, No.3 Mercedes, No.80 Mercedes and the No.81 BMW M3 Touring. The M3 spectacularly jumped from fourth to second between Flugplatz and the Fuchsröhre, but was then hit with a 45 second penalty for ignoring yellow flags earlier in the race.
The woes were taken further when rain started to fall at sunset, and the No.81 was on the wrong tyre, so it lost another couple of minutes. The No.34 was another car to suffer in the rain, as it passed the pit entry just before the rain started falling, so it went deep in turn one, and lost a lot of time over the rest of the lap as the two Mercedes pit onto the wet tyre.
Despite both the Aston Martin and BMW losing time in the rain, they both stayed in the top five, but were a few minutes behind the two Mercedes which led. The other car in the top five was the No.99 Rowe BMW, which recovered after a spin on lap one that put them at the back of the first starting group. By this point, the rain that seemed to want to soak the Eifel Forest had disappeared.
The sister Rowe car was unfortunately forced to retire, admitting defeat on their attempt to defend the No.1 on their car. The reason for retirement was a fuel system issue, that could not be fixed without losing significant time.
Meanwhile, the No.3 and No.80 Mercedes continued trading places at the front, possibly teaming up to get a slip stream and save fuel. Although there may have been motivations for working together, the German cars continued to fight hard, going side by side into Schwedenkreuz at one point.
Another potential front runner dropped out six and a half hours in. Morris Schuring found the wall at Flugplatz, after conflict with a back marker, and had to limp round to Höhe Acht to find an escape road which he could be easily picked up from.
Alessio Picariello in the No.17 Dunlop Motorsports Porsche had a huge incident at Bergwerk, clipping the grass while going past the No.13 Porsche Cup 2 machine and hitting the wall very hard, destroying the front of the car, and their race.
As we neared the 12 hours of the race, the two Winward cars pit from the front and installed Maro Engel and Max Verstappen respectively. The duo wasted no time getting the gloves off, running nose to tail for laps on end, but Verstappen got the run on the Dottinger on lap 68, and took the lead of the race.
On the next lap Engel was the one with the run, getting alongside as the two barrelled towards traffic at Tiergarten. Engel in the No.80 was the one to be shuffled wide, and the German almost lost it majorly on the grass at well over 200 km/h, but he somehow managed to save it. He slotted back into second, but now a few seconds back from Verstappen.
They completed another set of stops before the halfway point, with the No.80 completing a brake change and swapping Engel out for Maxime Martin.
