Mercedes-AMG wins Nürburgring 24 as Verstappen Racing suffers late heartbreak
17/05/2026
The 2026 Nürburgring 24 Hours delivered the kind of ending only the Nordschleife can write.
Mercedes-AMG won the race with the #80 Mercedes-AMG Team RAVENOL car of Maro Engel, Luca Stolz, Fabian Schiller and Maxime Martin, but the story will always be tied to the sister #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing entry. Because Max Verstappen, Dani Juncadella, Jules Gounon and Lucas Auer looked set for a sensational debut win. Until the car broke.
From Verstappen fairytale to Mercedes redemption
For Mercedes, this is still a major result. It is the brand’s first overall win at the Nürburgring 24 Hours since 2016, and the #80 car’s victory is especially impressive considering its difficult qualifying story. Maro Engel had crashed in qualifying, forcing the Winward Racing crew into a serious repair effort before the race even began. The car then came through the 24 hours cleanly enough to inherit the moment when the #3 entry’s dream collapsed.
Verstappen was not just there for attention
This was not an F1 star doing a marketing cameo. Verstappen was fast in traffic, fast in darkness and fast when the race demanded aggression. Earlier in the race, he put the #3 Mercedes into the lead and fought hard with Engel in the sister car, with the two Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3s controlling much of the race.
The failure that changed everything
At first, it appeared to be an ABS-related problem. Juncadella later explained that he received an ABS failure message, tried to manage it, and then began hearing noises around the gearbox or driveshaft area before driving slowly back to the pits. The team discovered an issue in the driveshaft area with collateral damage elsewhere in the car.
The #80 Mercedes moved into the clear lead and eventually brought home Mercedes-AMG’s third overall Nürburgring 24 Hours victory.
A record crowd and a brutal reminder
The Verstappen effect was very real. WELT reported that Verstappen’s participation helped draw a record crowd of 352,000 spectators to the Nürburgring weekend. That made the late failure even more dramatic. Thousands came to see whether Verstappen could win the world’s toughest GT race on debut, and for most of the race, the answer looked like yes.
But Nürburgring does not care about the script. It had already taken out Manthey’s Grello Porsche after oil on track at Brünnchen, another major story we covered earlier. Then, when Verstappen Racing looked like the new centre of gravity, the race took that away too.
That is why this event remains unmatched.
AutoNext Take
This is the perfect Nürburgring 24 Hours story. Not because it is fair. Because it is not. The #3 Mercedes looked like the car of the race. Verstappen delivered. Juncadella, Gounon and Auer delivered. Winward Racing had the strategy, the pace and the control.
But Mercedes still won, and the #80 crew absolutely deserves credit. Engel, Stolz, Schiller and Martin did the most important thing in endurance racing: they were still there when the race decided to change its mind.
It also makes one thing obvious: Verstappen needs to come back. Because now the Nürburgring story is unfinished. And unfinished Nürburgring stories are usually the best ones.
