Verstappen turned the opening hours into a calling card. Dani Juncadella started from P4, after which Verstappen carved through the field in his double stint with two standout overtakes and another right after a scare where he only just kept the Mercedes out of the barriers. In the night came a gripping duel with Maro Engel at almost 270 km/h, which narrowly ended well. At daybreak, the quartet had the #3 firmly at the front.

The detail many viewers are noticing now: up front, there aren’t one but two related Mercedes-AMG GT3s. The #3 runs under the Verstappen Racing name, the #80 under Winward Racing. At the six-hour mark — Saturday evening — Verstappen’s #3 was leading, ahead of the #80. Lucas Auer reinforced that gap himself with an overtake around the outside at Schwedenkreuz on the #80 of Fabian Schiller. Two cars from the same family, battling each other on the track.

And that’s the crux. Verstappen Racing is the team name under which Max Verstappen competes in endurance races under his own banner. But getting a GT3 car around the Nordschleife flawlessly for 24 hours requires a full operation: mechanics, engineers, strategy, and years of Nordschleife know-how. That’s provided by Winward Racing, a renowned Mercedes-AMG outfit. The #3 is therefore officially registered as “Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing”: the name is Verstappen’s, the execution is Winward’s. The #80 is a separate Winward entry. So Verstappen’s car isn’t a competitor to Winward; it is a Winward, with a different label and a different starting number.

In the leading #3, Verstappen shares the wheel with Dani Juncadella, Lucas Auer, and Jules Gounon—three experienced GT drivers. With stints of around two hours, they rotate; over the full 24 hours, Verstappen is expected to drive about six hours in total. Juncadella did the opening stint, Verstappen moved the car forward, Gounon and Auer kept it there.

For clarity, one distinction: this is separate from Verstappen’s GT3 debut last September. Back then, he won his first GT3 race in the Nürburgring Endurance Series in a Ferrari 296 from Emil Frey Racing—different brand, different team, different setup. The current Winward/Mercedes arrangement is not a continuation of that.

If you open the 24-hour standings and see Verstappen Racing ahead of Winward Racing, you’re not seeing a duel between different teams; it’s the same Mercedes family: Verstappen’s car carries his name but runs on the people and expertise of Winward. Whether that lead holds in the coming hours will be decided by the Nordschleife, but the structure behind it is already clear.

The 24 Hours of the Nürburgring can be followed via our live blog. In addition, the race can also be followed in full via the main livestream, as well as the onboard livestream from the cockpit of Verstappen Racing.