The Kondo Ferrari #45 (Perel/Marschall/Vermeulen) will start the second race of the 2026 24h Nurburgring Qualifiers from pole position. In top qualifying, Thierry Vermeulen set the fastest time with 8:10.275 minutes – though by the smallest possible margin.
David Jahn, the pole-sitter from Saturday’s race, missed Vermeulen’s time by just one thousandth of a second in the Gamota BMW #23 (Zsigo/Kranz/Jahn).
“Many thanks to the team for such a car. We were able to improve again since the last NLS race,” said Vermeulen. “Yesterday, we still had a few problems, but overnight the team made some improvements. It was great to complete a lap without traffic.”
Starting third is the Scherer-Phx Audi #16 (Haase/Sims/B. Green), ahead of the Manthey Porsche #911 “Grello” (Preining/Campbell). In fifth place is the Winward Mercedes #3 (Verstappen/Auer), which was driven not by Formula 1 star Max Verstappen in top qualifying but by team-mate Lucas Auer.
The Prosport Mercedes #26 (Christodoulou/Grenier/Lulham), the Schnitzelalm Mercedes #11 (Heyer/Hartling/Fitje), the Black Falcon Porsche #48 (Arrow/Assenheimer/T. Muller/Pereira), the second Winward Mercedes #80 (Engel/Schiller/Stolz), and the second Black Falcon Porsche #5 (Kaya/Kiefer/Piana/Stursberg) completed the top 10.
As preparation for the main race, the cars in the top SP9 class took part in an individual time trial, where each driver was allowed two laps. Although the Nordschleife was still wet in the morning at the start of the second qualifying session, it largely dried by the time of top qualifying, so all cars ran on slick tires.
#3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing, lines up fifth
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
However, there were still some damp patches, which proved costly for Alessio Picariello in the Dunlop Porsche #17 (Picariello/Boccolacci) during the warm-up lap. The Belgian went off track on the Nordschleife and hit the guardrail. After the warm-up lap, Picariello had to return to the pits with a damaged car.
“I was just stupid,” Picariello admitted afterward. “The tires weren’t fully in the window. I tried to get them as warm as possible. I lost the car mid-corner and couldn’t catch it. It wasn’t a huge impact, but it was enough to damage the car. That was a silly mistake on my part.”
Next to be affected was his team-mate Sven Muller in the Falken Porsche #44 (Heinemann/S. Muller/Schuring), which – like the Dunlop car – is run by the Schnabl team. After going off in the Hatzenbach section, Muller’s session was over, and yellow flags at the accident site slowed down the following drivers.
Initially, it seemed that only the five drivers who had passed the accident scene beforehand would fight for pole position. However, on the second flying lap, many drivers improved their times despite having to slow down in the accident zone.
This kept top qualifying exciting until the very end, but none of the rivals could beat the early benchmark set by DTM driver Vermeulen, the son of Verstappen’s manager Raymond Vermeulen.
The second race of the 24h Nurburgring Qualifiers will start at 13:00.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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