The unseen Max Verstappen trick that has already stunned a Nurburgring legend

Max Verstappen is already showing his racer’s instincts and abilities around the Nurburgring Nordschleife, with an expert having spotted an invisible example of his talents.

The four-time F1 World Champion takes part in his first 24-hour endurance race this weekend at the Nurburgring, with Verstappen racing in the second round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, the 24 Hours of Nurburgring, driving a Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO with teammates Lucas Auer, Dani Juncadella, and Jules Gounon.

Markus Winkelhock praises Max Verstappen’s Nurburgring GT3 adaptation

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With Verstappen taking part in the top class of the endurance race, SP9 GT3-Pro, it marks the culmination of a months-long quest to take part in an illustrious top-level endurance race.

The Dutch driver has long spoken of his enjoyment of endurance racing, and regularly takes part in online editions of events such as the Le Mans and Daytona 24 Hours.

Verstappen embarked on the process to achieve his Nurburgring DMSB permit, which he achieved in the NLS7 round of the 2025 Nurburgring Landstrecken-Serie, driving a CUP3 GT4 Porsche.

Off the leash in a full-blooded GT3 Ferrari in the top class, he and Chris Lulham won the NLS9 round in his final extra-curricular racing activity of 2025.

He was also part of the winning driver combination at the NLS2 this year, but was later disqualified due to an operational error from his team that saw too many sets of tyres used throughout the event.

A competitive weekend last month in the NLS4 and NLS5 races didn’t yield any results, with the first race being called off due to the tragic death of Juha Miettinen just 26 minutes into the four-hour race, while any chance of a win in the NLS5 ended due to car damage that saw a drop-off in performance.

One driver that Verstappen will meet on track this weekend in Germany is Markus Winkelhock, a multiple winner of the event outright.

Winkelhock, son of former F1 and sports car racer Manfred, infamously led the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring when he made a one-off appearance for Spyker.

Following his short-lived F1 career, Winkelhock has carved out immense success in sports cars, and, amongst his many accolades, has won the Nurburgring 24 Hours on multiple occasions: 2010, ’12, ’14, and ’17, as well as podium finishes in 2011, ’19, and ’20.

This year, he’ll be driving in the small SPX class in a Mercedes 190E HWA EVO.R, but first, he had duties in Miami, where he attended the Grand Prix as a guest of Audi.

It’s the first time the German driver has been back in the F1 paddock since his short F1 career, and he attended as a driver of the new Audi RS5 for a series of Pirelli Hot Laps.

Greeting me warmly, Winkelhock is friendly and chatty as we sit in the Audi hospitality, where he tells me about the fun he’s had driving the new RS5, having carried out plenty of endurance testing during the production process of the machine.

Inevitably, so soon before the Nurburgring race, our chat turns to how Verstappen might get on in the race, which will see him drive in the dark for the first time after missing the opportunity in NLS4 due to the tragic circumstances of the day.

The 45-year-old said he’s delighted to see someone of Verstappen’s calibre taking part in the event and, even more importantly, according to it the respect it deserves.

“For me, it’s nice to see Max running around there, really like normal. In the end, he’s an F1 superstar, but he doesn’t behave like that,” Winkelhock said.

“I think he enjoys it because this is a completely different world. I don’t know Max so well, but seeing it from the outside, he likes the pure racing, he’s a racer, and he also likes this kind of basic stuff on the Nurburgring.

“Obviously, the race track with the GT3 cars, it’s really something special. So it’s a big challenge.

“For me, I have to say I’m really impressed with the way he did it. Coming from an F1 car, it’s much lighter, with much more downforce.

“It’s a completely different car, and jumping between these two worlds is already difficult.

“But then, going on the Nordschleife, which is not a normal race circuit, if you have no experience on the Nordschleife… I remember when I went the first time in a GT3 car, it took me a couple of tests more than Max to be really on that pace.

“I think I can touch it, how difficult it is, and what he does is insane. It’s unbelievable.”

Max Verstappen’s Flugplatz technique impresses Markus Winkelhock at Nurburgring

While Verstappen’s pace is not in question, given the competitiveness on display during his long duels with veteran Christopher Haase in the four-hour races he’s done this year, the challenge is more in the mental load, particularly through the traffic.

Something that might not be visible to TV cameras is the deft touch of a driver dealing adeptly with this challenge, given the success of negotiating traffic isn’t always borne out in ultimate laptime, but a multiple winner such as Winkelhock is one of the most qualified people to judge how the Dutch driver is coping with the challenge, and he pointed to an example that’s caught his eye.

“The traffic, F1 drivers are not used to this different speed difference in traffic with all these slow cars. There are 160, 180 cars on track, right?” he said.

“Sometimes there’s a speed difference of 80 kilometres per hour, or even more. To read and judge this traffic, all the GT3 drivers can gain and lose a lot of time in traffic.

“For example, if you approach Flugplatz, the worst thing you can do is stay behind a slow car and then start to accelerate towards Schwedenkreuz.

“It’s more clever to back off, as an example, to back off and make a gap, and then exit Flugplatz with the overrun to overtake on the exit of Flugplatz. Many drivers who don’t have the experience, they just stop behind the slow car and start to accelerate again.

“Max understands how to take the flow through the traffic. I watched the onboard from his second race, in the Mercedes, watching only his onboard for 45 minutes. I was just watching him when he followed the Audi of Christopher Haase, and it was great… it was crazy to see the amount of experience he already has. Really, really awesome.”

All eyes will be on the Nurburgring this weekend to see how the four-time F1 World Champion fares in his first 24-hour race, a slice of extracurricular fun for the Red Bull F1 driver during a long season in his day job.

Success in Formula 1 is proving more difficult to come by this year, with Red Bull no longer at the very top of the pecking order, while the Dutch driver has also made it clear his enjoyment of F1 has waned due to the impact of the new power unit regulations.

Jumping back and forth between the complexities of Formula 1 and the different mentality needed for endurance racing, Verstappen’s abilities shine through, according to Winkelhock, who said he’s impressed by just how fluid the jumps are for the F1 driver.

“I think it’s in his nature; he wants to race,” he said.

“What he is doing, he’s not really thinking about it; the Nordschleife is so special, especially with the weather conditions, everything is changing very quickly there. He’s a pure talent, and he’s not thinking… he’s just adapting to what’s going on. I think that’s why he’s so fast.

“These are two completely different worlds, jumping from an F1 car. I am driving a HWA Mercedes, which is slower than a GT3 car… It’s a little different driving style.

“But, for me, jumping from this car back to the GT3 was already… four, five, six, seven laps to get used to the GT3 again. A car that I’ve driven for 10 years now! Coming from an F1 car to a GT3, these are two completely different worlds, and it doesn’t even take him two to three laps, and he’s already on it, aggressively.”

PlanetF1.com will be reporting live from the Nurburgring throughout the entirety of the 24 Hours of Nurburgring weekend, where you can keep up to date with Verstappen’s progress.

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