The Abt Lamborghini team has locked out the front row of the grid for Saturday’s Nürburgring 24 Hours, as qualifying for the 2026 edition of the race culminated with Friday lunchtime’s ‘Top Qualifying 3’ session to determine the order of the top 12 starters.
Eventual polesitter Luca Engstler put down an early benchmark of 8:14.722 in the #84 Abt machine, but was quickly eclipsed by two other entries running the Italian marque – Marco Mapelli in the sister #130 car with an 8:11.668 and #7 Konrad Motorsport driver Maximilan Paul with an 8:14.22.
The Lamborghini stranglehold was briefly broken by Christopher Haase (#16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi, above) and Frank Stippler (#64 HRT Ford), who vaulted into a provisional third and fourth position ahead of Engstler’s car with their first flying efforts, but changes in the order were still to come.
Approaching halfway through the session, Engstler and Mapelli both improved on their earlier attempts – clocking an 8:11.123 and an 8:11.468 respectively – to go first and second. “I’m just grateful to everyone involved in the team, and to my co-drivers,” said Engstler afterwards. “I couldn’t really build confidence on the first lap, but the track dried quite a lot over the course of 25 or 30 minutes, so I was able to go ‘full send’ for the second. Conditions were not ideal, but close to ideal.”
Daniel Juncadella briefly got the #3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes into third with an 8:12.005, but was then demoted as Haase improved to put the #16 Audi into third with an 8:11.984.
That means the Verstappen car (above), crewed by the Dutchman, Juncadella, Jules Gounon and Lucas Auer, will line up fourth on Saturday’s grid. “It was a very good day,” Juncadella said afterwards. “Ideally, we wanted to start in the first five positions, and we are P4, so that’s great.
“The car seems competitive, and we did a good job through all parts of qualifying. We’re just fine-tuning a little here and there; the track was still a little wet at the start of the session, but by the end was fully dry.”
There was a strong performance from Thomas Neubauer to put the Kondo/Rinaldi Ferrari into fifth with an 8:12.221, ahead of Konrad’s Paul, who improved on his earlier effort with an 8:12.256 to secure sixth at the conclusion.
Stippler ended up seventh and highest-qualifying Ford Mustang driver in the #64, alongside the best Porsche – the #911 Manthey entry (above) driven in this session by Thomas Preining. Ninth on the grid will be occupied by the defending race winner, the #1 ROWE BMW of Farfus, Marciello, Pepper, and Kelvin van der Linde, while the #47 KCMG of David Pittard will line up 10th.
Completing the top 12 were Nicki Thiim in the #34 Walkenhorst car – the sole Aston Martin to make it to the final stage of qualifying – and Fred Vervisch in the #67 Ford.
Following an hour-long morning warm-up session at 10:00 am local time on Saturday, the main event will get underway at 3:00 pm when an estimated 300,000 spectators are expected to be in place around the circuit for the start.
Images courtesy of Frozenspeed
