Max Verstappen had his chance of victory at the 24 Hours of Nurburgring ended by a technical problem in the final hours of the race. The retirement of car #3 from Verstappen Racing happened about four hours before the end of the race and frustrated the team led by the four-time Formula 1 champion.
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The Dutchman was sharing the Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon, and Lucas Auer. The failure paved the way for the victory of another Mercedes car, led by Maro Engel, ending bitterly a participation that had been considered very strong until that moment.
After the race, Auer commented on the atmosphere within the team and admitted the disappointment over the retirement. Even so, the Austrian highlighted the pride in the collective performance throughout the weekend at Nurburgring: “It was a very good race. Obviously frustrating, but I am also proud of our group and it was a great pleasure to share the car with the drivers and the whole team. I think we managed everything very well. There was a lot of media attention and many more people, but we were very organized,” he said.
Verstappen’s teammate also revealed what the Dutchman’s reaction was after the confirmation of the mechanical problem. According to Auer, frustration took over the team, although everyone understands how endurance races can be unpredictable.
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“I would say it was frustrating, but in the end we are all in motorsport and we know how this business works sometimes,” said the Austrian. He also highlighted the difficulties of managing traffic between different categories on the track but assessed that the race was relatively clean in terms of incidents.
The head of Mercedes-AMG Customer Racing, Stefan Wendl, explained that the problems started right after the driver change between Verstappen and Juncadella. According to him, the Spaniard immediately reported an ABS failure still on the out-lap from the pits, leading the team to initially suspect an electrical problem.
Mercedes tried to resolve the situation by restarting the system, allowing the car to continue temporarily without major time loss. However, shortly after, Juncadella noticed abnormal noises and vibrations, being forced to return to the pits, where a broken driveshaft and damage to other components of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 were found.
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