Mercedes is celebrating its first victory in the legendary 24h Nürburgring race. Maro Engel, Luca Stolz, Fabian Schiller and Maxime Martin managed to bring the car home in first place. The Max Verstappen crew in the #3 car had one hand on the victory trophy, but technical issues shattered their hopes.
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| Photo: ADAC Motorsport |
This year’s Nürburgring 24 Hours race was mainly a battle between the two Winward Racing Mercedes cars, which occupied the top two positions after Saturday’s tricky evening as rain approached the circuit. During this period, many of Mercedes’ competitors failed to survive the challenging “Green Hell.” The very popular yellow Porsche 911 GT3 R of the Manthey team, with Kévin Estre behind the wheel, retired from the race after crashing into the barriers.
They were not the only ones. The sole Ferrari 296 GT3 entered by Kondo Racing suffered a major crash, while one of the Ford Mustang GT3 cars from HRT Ford Performance also failed to reach the finish after Arjun Maini lost control of the car.
During the eleventh hour, the battle between the two Mercedes crews reached its peak as Max Verstappen overtook the sister car to take the lead of the race. Later on, the #3 crew built a gap of more than half a minute over the second-placed #80 Mercedes.
Everything seemed to be going perfectly and hopes for victory were rising. However, everything changed three and a half hours before the end of the race, when Verstappen handed over the car to Daniel Juncadella and technical issues appeared on their Mercedes-AMG GT3. Stefan Wendel later confirmed that the problem was a driveshaft failure.
“We received an ABS warning, but Dani (Juncadella) felt he could manage with it,” said Wendl. “However, noises and vibrations subsequently developed, forcing him to make an unscheduled pit stop after just two laps. We then discovered damage to the driveshaft, which had caused further collateral damage."
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| Photo: Red Bull Content Pool |
The Mercedes #3 then came back on track, but with 21 laps lost.
The second Winward crew #80 managed to bring their car smoothly to the finish line and secured Mercedes's first victory in this legendary race after a decade and that's thanks to Maro Engel, Luca Stolz, Fabian Schiller a Maxime Martin who shared a driver duties behind the wheel.
“I have to say I really feel for them. The four of them drove amazing and they would have deserved the win for sure.
“I think they had it in their hand. But, as I said before this weekend, especially at the Nürburgring, you need that little bit of luck on your side. We just had that today.
“It’s one of those races where can put all the prep in, you can have all the ingredients, but you cannot force it. Things have to come your way and today was one of those days where it came our way,” Said Engel about his teammates of #3 car.
“It’s an amazing feeling, one that I think takes the weight off all our shoulders at Mercedes-AMG Motorsport because it’s been a long ten years,” said Engel. “We had opportunities and we didn’t manage to get it done, came close, had some heartbreaks.
“To finally take this win back to Affalterbach, for me, my second win, is an incredible feeling."
The pole-sitting crew of Luca Engstler, Mirko Bortolotti, and Patric Niederhauser finished in second place with their Lamborghini Huracán GT3 run by ABT. They were joined on the podium by the Walkenhorst Motorsport crew of Christian Krognes, Mattia Drudi, and Nicki Thiim in third place.
We also have to mention the BMW M3 Touring 24H, which finished fifth overall — an incredible achievement for the entire team.