In front of an official weekend spectator count of 352,000 people, Maro Engel, Luca Stolz, Fabian Schiller and Maxime Martin have won the 2026 edition of the Nürburgring 24 Hours in the #80 Ravenol-sponsored, Winward Racing-run Mercedes-AMG GT.
It’s the first overall triumph for Mercedes at this event since 2016 – a victory Engel was also a part of, making him now a two-time Nürburgring 24 Hours winner. Stolz adds a debut N24 victory to the trio of podium finishes he’s previously scored here, while Schiller goes one better than his previous best of second in 2022. And after a class victory in 2018 and no less than four overall second-place finishes earlier in his career, the Belgian veteran Maxime Martin has finally clinched his first N24 win.
Engel said afterwards: “It’s been absolutely incredible what’s been happening here. I think the Nurburgring has been the motorsports capital of the world this weekend. Can I just say a huge thank you to the fans for the incredible support, for the show they’re putting on, for the party they’re having out there – the energy carries over to us.”
“And a huge thank-you to my crew, especially after what happened to me on Friday; they put the car back together in perfect shape. And these three amazing drivers, my team-mates, they did an incredible job. I’m just so happy to finally deliver this win to Mercedes-AMG again. It has been 10 long years.”
The victory will be particularly satisfying one for Engel, as redemption for the aforementioned crash in qualifying on Friday, and for the Winward Racing crew, who worked late into that night to repair the car in time for Saturday’s start. Following that drama, in a race that was eventful and hit by mixed conditions in the opening hours, the #80 car was pretty much the only runner in the top SP9 GT3 class to go problem-free for the duration.
It was a touch-and-go final half-hour however, with Engel getting back on board for an unplanned final single stint on cut slick tyres as one of the occasional brief showers that have characterised this 54th running of the race appeared. Stolz, who had been in the car before this, said afterwards: “It started to drizzle quite hard at the end of my stint, so we were thinking whether we should put on slicks, or intermediates, or even wets? It’s always really difficult here, especially if you are in the lead for that long, it’s quite tough to bring it home.”
Driving the sister #3 Winward Racing car (under the Verstappen Racing banner) the crew of Daniel Juncadella, Max Verstappen, Jules Gounon and Lucas Auer had taken the lead before the light faded on Saturday evening, and looked set for a controlled run to the flag, with major competition from the #911 Manthey Porsche long ago eliminated when Kevin Estre hit oil and spun into a barrier early on.
But after an imperious run throught the night and into the morning, including some close racing between Verstappen and Engel, trouble struck the then-leading #3 Mercedes with a little over three hours to go. Just after Juncadella had take over from a Verstappen double stint, the Spaniard was forced to bring the car back to the garage with what was initially diagnosed as ABS failure due to an electrical issue; a deeper inspection by the Winward mechanics also revealed a broken driveshaft and further damage in the vicinity.
Although the car was effectively a retirement, drivers and crew elected to get it repaired for some laps in the final half-our as a nod to the huge number of fans who’d been following Verstappen’s 24-hour racing debut all weekend.
Maxime Martin said afterwards: “It was a big battle with the #3 ever since the rain arrived and I think we as a team made a very good tyre choice that helped us a lot. It was really intense and it’s a shame for the other car how they had to leave with an issue. But I’ve been in that situation a lot before; this time the luck came to us and to win this kind of race, you need for sure a little bit of luck.”
Second place therefore went to a different Red Bull-liveried car: the #84 Abt Lamborghini Huracan (above), after a strong recovery drive from the three-man crew of Mirko Bortolotti, Patric Niederhauser and polewinner Luca Engstler. This car had been put on the back foot before even making it onto the Nordschleife on lap one, following contact in the left-rear from Juncadella’s Mercedes causing a puncture. Its drivers then demonstrated scorching pace for the remainder of the event, but were set back again just before 1:00pm local time on Sunday when an 84-second penalty was assessed for Code 60 slow-zone violations.
UPDATE: The #84 Lamborghini was later disqualified from the race, for exceeding its power limit.
Mirroring the approach taken by Manthey Racing in the 2025 event, the team elected not to take the penalty at a subsequent pit stop, instead aiming to have Bortolotti stretch the gap to third by enough that the penalty would be added to the total race time and have no bearing on the final classification. However, Mattia Drudi’s pace in the chasing #34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin (below) – wearing cut slick tyres to the Lamborghini’s slicks – was such that Bortolotti was also watching the gap to the fourth-place #99 ROWE BMW, and it was touch-and-go whether the Huracan would be officially classified second or third once the penalty had been applied.
However, a last-minute Code 60 on the Dottinger Hohe straight, after Bortolotti had passed on his final lap, held up Drudi enough to make the effective gap at the flag 16 seconds, leaving him, Christian Krognes and Nicki Thiim to take third. The trio had also experienced a far from trouble-free run, exhibiting strong pace and good judgement in traffic, but suffering due to their fuel allowance only letting them complete seven laps in a stint, versus eight for the rest of the field. A further setback was a penalty applied for Krognes passing under yellows while battling the #99 BMW (below).
That car’s line-up of Dan Harper, Max Hesse, Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor kept their cool to recover from Harper’s spin on lap one of the race and come home in fourth overall – a solid but ultimately disappointing follow-up to BMW’s 2025 victory at this venue. The sister #1 ROWE BMW, with three-quarters of that year’s race-winning crew on strength, was eliminated from contention much earlier on by a refuelling issue.
Finishing fifth overall and winning the race’s SP-X ‘experimental’ class was another BMW – the #81 M3 Touring 24H (above) of Jens Klingmann, Ugo de Wilde, Connor de Philippi and Neil Verhagen. This massively fan-favoured entry developed from a 2025 April Fool’s Day social-media post into a very real estate-bodied version of the brand’s M4 GT3 racer for the 2026 running of this event. The car had mixed it with the front-runners from the early phases of the race and was even judged to be a slight advantage over its more conventional sibling in the downforce department, thanks to its extra bodywork and extremely large rear wing.
Sixth position at the flag was occupied by the best-finishing Porsche of the race: the #24 Lionspeed 911 (above) of Laurin Heinrich, Laurens Vanthoor and Ricardo Feller. The sole remaining HRT Ford Mustang in SP9 Pro, the #67 of Christopher Mies, Dennis Olsen, Fred Vervisch and Frank Stippler, wound up seventh after a puncture put paid to their earlier efforts, which included battling for the overall at times in the early running.
Michael Christensen brought the #54 Dinamic Porsche shared with Joel Sturm, Bastian Buus and Loek Hartog home eighth, but there was heartbreak in the final hour for the sister #55 car, which hit the barriers and caught fire with Alessandro Ghiretti at the wheel. The Italian escaped unscathed but his body language showed he was devastated at the outcome. Ninth went to the best-placed of the two Schubert BMWs in the race: the #77 of Philipp Eng, Charles Weerts, Robin Frijns and Marco Wittman.
Although Porsche’s bid for overall glory was cut short by the aforementioned Manthey crash, as well as incidents for the Schnabl Engineering-run Falken and Dunlop cars, there was at least some good news for the brand in the SP9 Pro-Am ranks, where 911s locked out the top six positions at the flag.
Leading the charge in 10th position overall was the #48 LOSCH Motorsport by Black Falcon entry, piloted by Daan Arrow, Patrick Assenheimer, Tobias Mueller and Dylan Pereira. The #18 Lionspeed entry (with the BTCC’s Jake Hill among the drivers) and the #123 Muehlner Motorsport car (crewed by former prototype racer Alex Brundle among others) completed the class podium. The SP9 Am category was also won by a Porsche – the #5 Black Falcon Team EAE entry of Gabriel Piana, Mike Stursberg, Thomas Kiefer and Mustafa Mehmet Kaya.
Images courtesy of Frozenspeed & GruppeC Photography
