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.

The crash comes as another hit to the No.24 Lionspeed GP car's week, which crashed in Qualifying 1 and only qualified 24th once the car was repaired, far lower than a car with such a high calibre of drivers would expect (Laurens Vanthoor, Laurin Heinrich and Ricardo Feller).

Jimmy Broadbent, Steve Alvarez Brown, Misha Charoudin and Manuel Metzger will be racing the No.632 Porsche Cup car this weekend in the AT2 class. Catch all the action on YouTube, to see if they can extract the advantages of their vast simulator experience by taking a class win at the Nürburgring 24h.

Current Intercontinental GT Challenge (IGTC) championship leader, Maro Engel, crashed in the Hatzenbach, bringing out a code 60 which lasted the majority of the session. Being one of a few drivers to already have passed the corner where Engel crashed, Max Verstappen set the pace with an 8:14.459 in the No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes.

Top Qualifying 1 was the first of three Top Qualifying sessions. 50 cars took part to compete for one of 20 spots in Top Qualifying 2. Before the session started, five cars had already qualified based on their pace in previous Nürburgring Lansgtrecken-Serie (NLS) rounds.

With a stacked, competitive list making their way to the 2026 edition of Nürburgring 24 Hours, the German enduro will deliver a string of qualifying sessions. Here's a guide to their revamped format.

41 GT3 cars will race in the top, SP9, class of the Nürburgring 24h. Although the track is considered ruthless, for 40 of the SP9 competitors perhaps the most ominous part of the 24 hour race will be the No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes, which will be run in tandem with Winward Racing.