Ecstasy and agony in the "Green Hell": Mercedes-AMG breaks 10-year curse at the Nürburgring after Max Verstappen's historic drama
The 2026 edition of the legendary 24-hour race at the Nürburgring will go down in the history books of motorsport as one of the most dramatic and spectacular encounters of the modern era. In front of a record crowd of over 352,000 fans, who came to the legendary German circuit to witness what experts have called the “Verstappen Effect”, Mercedes-AMG scored a resounding victory through the number 80 Winward Racing crew. However, the team’s triumph was a bittersweet one, being built on the ruins of the technical abandonment suffered by the twin car in which the quadruple Formula 1 world champion, Max Verstappen, was driving.
The madness in the Eifel Mountains and the debut of the champion
Never in the history of this legendary race, which spans over half a century, have tickets sold out so quickly. The presence of Max Verstappen at the wheel of a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, under the colors of the Verstappen Racing team (number 3), transformed the event into a true global phenomenon. Along with his elite teammates – Lucas Auer, Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella –, the Dutch star quickly demonstrated that he did not come to Germany just for show, with the crew qualifying in an excellent 4th place.
The race offered heart-stopping moments from the very beginning. In an extremely aggressive overtaking attempt on the famous Nordschleife, Verstappen almost took off with his car on one of the pronounced bumps of the circuit, being saved only by his amazing reflexes. Afterwards, the number 3 crew took over the reins of the competition and dictated the pace at the head of the race for many hours.
The fratricidal duel and the theatrical coup at 9 p.m.
The main threat to Verstappen came not from traditional rivals BMW or Porsche, but from within his own garage. Winward Racing’s sister car, the #80 crew of Maro Engel, Fabian Schiller, Maxime Martin and Luca Stolz, set off an electrifying chase. The two Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo prototypes went pole-to-pole, with strategists from the #80 car perfectly timing their tyre choices as the region’s characteristic rain and hail battered the track.
After almost 21 hours of extreme exertion, Verstappen and his teammates seemed set for a historic debut victory. But the “Green Hell” is unforgiving. Just 3 hours before the end of the 24 hours, just after Daniel Juncadella had taken over the wheel from Verstappen, car number 3 suddenly slowed down due to a major technical problem: the cardan shaft failed. Although the mechanics made titanic efforts and managed to send the car back onto the track on the last lap to symbolically cross the finish line, the dream of victory had evaporated.
Maro Engel's redemption and the end of a decade-long drought
The #80 Winward Racing crew instantly capitalized on their teammate's misfortune, taking the lead and managing the final hours under immense pressure. For driver Maro Engel, the victory was total redemption for the team after a serious crash in Friday's qualifying session left the mechanics working all night.
This triumph ends a drought of exactly 10 years for the Stuttgart-based manufacturer at the Nürburgring. Mercedes-AMG's last overall victory at this circuit was in 2016 – a race in which, symbolically, Maro Engel was also part of the winning crew.
The podium was completed by Lamborghini and Aston Martin
Behind the Mercedes winners, the battle for the remaining podium places kept fans on edge. Second place went to the #84 ABT Lamborghini crew (Engstler, Bortolotti and Niederhauser), racing in Red Bull colours, while the final step of the podium was taken by the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin crew.
The 2026 edition will be remembered not only as a formidable strategic triumph for Winward Racing, but also as pure proof of the unpredictability of endurance racing: a ruthless arena where even the planet's most titled champions must bow to mechanical limits.