‘Extraordinary’ Max Verstappen did something never seen before during NLS5 Nurburgring race

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Max Verstappen suffered more heartbreak at the Nurburgring as he lost another likely win, but he continued to show his incredible talent behind the wheel of a sports car.

The Red Bull Formula 1 driver returned to the Green Hell for the fifth round of the Nurburgring Langstrecken-Serie last weekend. It was his second appearance in the category this year, having competed in NLS2 in March.

Driving the Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo, powered by Winward Racing, Verstappen was disqualified from NLS2 after his team used an extra set of tyres during the race. He had won by almost a minute, and victory could have been on the cards in NLS5 if not for critical damage.

Partnering with Lucas Auer, the Dutchman lined up fifth on the grid and managed to climb through the field and into the lead. However, he suddenly sustained damage to the front of the Mercedes and pulled into the pits for lengthy repairs.

By the time Auer took the wheel and returned to the track, he had dropped to 87th overall and three laps down. He managed to finish 39th, but the incident took him and Verstappen well out of contention, tarnishing what had been another strong outing.

Max Verstappen praised for ‘extraordinary’ overtake on Christopher Hasse during NLS5

The four-time champion more than showed his class at the Nurburgring with some stunning moves. Verstappen pulled off an overtake he practised on the sim before the race, passing a lapped car at the entrance to the pit lane.

He enjoyed another strong battle with Christopher Hasse in the early stages, pulling off an audacious move for the lead. The German went on to win alongside Alexander Sims and Ben Green, but Verstappen received huge praise for his pass.

Commentators Arjuna Kankipati and Neil Cole had never seen a move like it before at the Nurburgring. The former said, via Sky Sports F1’s YouTube channel: “It’s not often, I think, that you see someone reassert their authority on the race lead like that on the climb up towards the final corner.

“But Max Verstappen, maybe he’s done that in sim racing enough that he trusted Christopher Hasse he could do it here as well.”

Cole added: “Yeah, extraordinary. The car was a full half a length ahead, but Max just did not back off. Don’t think I’ve seen that before.”

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Max Verstappen assesses ‘strange’ incident that cost him NLS5 victory

After the race, Verstappen was left perplexed by what had caused the damage to the front of his Mercedes.

He had been leading by a couple of seconds before the issue brought his race to a standstill. Verstappen says the team will assess what caused the ‘strange’ incident.

“On the second lap of my second stint, I realised something was wrong. The splitter had broken off,” he said, via quotes from The Race.

“That is strange, because I didn’t hit anyone, so I don’t know how that happened. We need to investigate and resolve that.”