How Max Verstappen spent last weekend was very much the focus of the motor sport world as he made a serious assault on the Nürburgring 24 Hours in his Mercedes GT3.
The participation of F1’s greatest driver put the classic event under a bigger spotlight than ever before, and provided some sensational, raw, visceral moments a million miles removed from how an F1 race looks. That and Verstappen’s inevitably fantastic personal performance created a buzz which resonated through the whole sport.
The Nordschleife itself was of course part of that buzz; the fabled place where legends live in the mist between the fir trees, an insanely challenging 16-mile ride through valleys deemed far too dangerous for F1 since the mid-’70s.
But still very much associated with other-worldly grand prix performances from the greatest: Tazio Nuvolari‘s epic giant-killing in 1935, 45-year-old Juan Manuel Fangio‘s stunning recovery victory in ’57, Jackie Stewart‘s four-minute winning margin through the rain and mist in 1968. In its post-F1 life, Stefan Bellof‘s staggering lap record in his Group C Porsche 956 in 1983 just added further lustre, just as Verstappen’s performance there last weekend.
That he was brilliantly fast in a discipline so far removed from F1 really wasn’t so surprising. He’s Max Verstappen, after all. But the way in which he attacked the race right from the off made this something special. Footage of him climbing up from 10th to the lead on the damp surface, then pulling away, came replete with body contact and even a jaw-dropping passing move on Jesse Krohn completed partly on the grass.
Verstappen’s night-time stint was spectacular
The in-car night-time Verstappen footage as he battled with Marco Engel and they came to lap a lower class car in exactly the wrong place, headlights flashing as they descended upon it, trying to second-guess where it was going to be, with the nose of Engel’s Mercedes suddenly in the peripheral vision trying to take advantage, was raw, high-octane stuff. Kind of terrifying, but the core essence of the sport’s appeal.
It was a shame such a performance went unrewarded – Verstappen and his co-drivers Dani Juncadella, Lucas Auer and Jules Gounon were half a minute in the lead when forced to retire with a driveshaft problem three hours from the end. But that hardly mattered in the big picture. When that setting was combined with Verstappen’s audacity, it showcased something very special.
It begs two distinct questions. Could F1 ever produce something comparably thrilling? Secondly, was this purely a Verstappen virtuoso performance or just a reflection of the level of the best F1 drivers compared even to the extremely high driver standards in as serious a professional competitive category as GT3?
On the thrill question, it’s an unfair comparison. The venue has so much to do with it and F1 cars could not responsibly be let loose to race there. These are cars which lap Silverstone around half a minute faster than a GT3 (implying almost three minutes faster around the Nordschleife). The cornering and straightline speeds could not safely be combined with the run-off and, in some cases, even the sight lines of the Nordschleife.
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By
Mark Hughes
The first big F1 accident there would be the last and the legal implications horrific. Another part of the thrill was how the leaders navigated an improvised path through vastly slower classes of cars, something that obviously wouldn’t happen in F1. The sad fact is that the ultimate performance of F1 has to be contained in much more sterile environments than something which was a bit fruity even in the 1930s.
As to how other top F1 drivers would fare in GT3 around this venue, it’s an unanswerable question which nonetheless poses a fascinating ‘what if’. We can look at how his best laps compare with those of Juncadella and Auer. Verstappen was respectively 0.182% and 0.718% faster (which around a more typical 90sec lap would translate as 0.164sec and 0.646sec). But these were race laps and not necessarily representative of the full potential of each.
How quick would Charles Leclerc be? Or Lando Norris, George Russell, Kimi Antonelli? Verstappen did something very special last weekend, but would they be able to lend greater perspective in equal machinery on the same grid? Would they even be granted permission to compete there by their F1 teams?
