Max Verstappen completed his opening laps of the Nordschleife in the dark as rain affected the second session of the 2026 Nurburgring 24 Hours weekend.
Drivers were extra precautionary, with Verstappen only using the low gears on his Mercedes GT3 that he shares with Mercedes GT3 that he shares with Jules Gounon, Lucas Auer and Daniel Juncadella.
All four featured during Thursday’s second outing, leading to the #3 Mercedes setting eight laps during the 3.5-hour session which was approximately the average across the grid.
Teams were just reluctant to head out and take any unnecessary risks, as drivers reported aquaplaning at speeds above 40km/h, with parts of the track under water.
But it meant relatively little because Thursday effectively served as a testing day for those in the top SP9 class.
That is despite the two sessions being called Qualifying 1 and 2, as it is used to determine grid spots 50 to 161 for Saturday’s race start.
Pole will instead be fought for via Top Qualifying on Friday, so the main takeaway from Qualifying 2 for the front runners were those wet sighting laps as mixed weather conditions continued.
#3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing, Mercedes AMG GT3 EVO: Max Verstappen, Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon, Lucas Auer
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
It therefore resulted in slower lap times than Qualifying 1, as the #1 Rowe Racing BMW topped Qualifying 2 with a 9m19.884s – that compares to a 9m34.713s for the Verstappen Racing Mercedes.
So the Verstappen third in opening Nurburgring 24 Hours session as Winward Mercedes leads thanks to Schillard’s 8m14.957s from the morning.
That was 3.112s quicker than the #1 BMW (Raffaele Marciello, Kelvin van der Linde, Jordan Pepper and Augusto Farfus) in second, while third went to the #3 Mercedes thanks to Verstappen’s 8m18.539s.
The sister Rowe BMW (Dan Harper, Max Hesse, Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor) was fourth fastest on Thursday through a 8m18.602s with the #911 Manthey Racing Porsche (Kevin Estre, Ayhancan Guven and Thomas Preining) completing the top five after an 8m21.717s.
Lamborghini, Audi and Ford all then featured in the lower half of the top 10 with track action returning at 8:50am local time in Germany.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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