24h Nurburgring, the Verstappen team is fourth on the grid: first row all Lamborghinis, then Haase’s Audi

Max Verstappen 6th in TQ2 In the end Max Verstappen drove in Top Qualifying 2, what for Formula 1 fans would be equivalent to Q2 of qualifying on a normal GP weekend. And he managed to achieve the minimum objective on Friday of official testing for the 24h of the Nurburgring Nordschleife: setting one of the top seven best times to move on to TQ3, the decisive session which put pole position up for grabs. Click here to add Formula Passion as your favorite source on Google Discover: you will find our content more easily! After setting the fastest lap, the session was neutralized for a long time with a slow zone due to the accident of the twin Mercedes (the fastest on Thursday) with Maro Engel at the wheel. At the end, however, once the green flag returned, other crews managed to improve, causing the Dutchman to slip to sixth place: a result still sufficient to make the cut after, in TQ1, teammate Lucas Auer had finished fifth, overcoming the first elimination (which rewarded the 20 best times). The fight for pole with Daniel Juncadella Given that the regulations prohibit a driver from taking part in more than one qualifying session, in the decisive phase of TQ3 the wheel of the Mercedes number 3 of the Verstappen.com Racing team fell to Daniel Juncadella. The Spaniard did not achieve pole position, but still set a slightly slower time than that set by Max Verstappen in the previous session (but with inevitably slightly different conditions) which allowed the crew to take fourth place on the starting grid. Lamborghini and Audi beat Mercedes and BMW. However, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of the four-time F1 world champion is the best of the grid, given that in the front row are the two Lamborghini Huracan GT3s of the Red Bull ABT team, capable of monopolizing the front row with the crews made up of Luca Engstler (the author of the pole), Mirko Bortolotti and Patric Niederhauser and Marco Mapelli, Nicky Catsburg and Nick Yelloly. In third place is the Audi R8 of the Scherer Sport team, driven by Christopher Haase (teamed with Alexander Sims and Ben Green) who was the protagonist of a long and exciting wheel-to-wheel battle with Verstappen in March. Luca Engstler (GER – Red Bull ABT Lamborghini Huracan GT3) celebrates pole position at the 24h Nurburgring Nordschleife 2026. 15.05.2026. Nurburgring, Eifel, Germany – Photo: 24h Nurburgring Media Therefore, crew number 3 manages to finish Friday qualifying quite well overall, avoiding the main pitfalls deriving from the risk of starting from the back and remaining stuck in traffic in the first hours of the race. The BMW of the Rowe team defending the title, whose crew is made up of Augusto Farfus, Raffaele Marciello, Jordan Pepper and Kelvin Van Der Linde, starts from ninth place instead. The program of the 24h Nurburgring (and Max Verstappen) The cars will return to the track on Saturday morning for an hour of warm-up, scheduled from 10.00 to 11.00 in the morning. The start of the first 24 Hours of Nurburgring of Max Verstappen’s career is set for 3.00 pm (with the complete training lap starting at 2.40 pm) which we will broadcast live streaming for free on: here is the complete program of the weekend.

Automobile Magazine – F1 English News , 2026-05-16 19:00:00