Max Verstappen rarely gives away anything resembling self-doubt in public. So when the four-time Formula 1 world champion sat down with his Mercedes-AMG GT3 teammates on the Friday evening of the Nürburgring 24 Hours and quietly handed over the opening stint of the race, it was the explanation that did the talking.
Verstappen had been the designated starter of the #3 entry across every practice session in the build-up to the race. The plan was for him to lead the car off the line from fourth on the grid and convert his single-lap pace into early track position. On Friday night, with qualifying complete and the lights only hours away, he changed his own plan and told Spanish GT veteran Daniel Juncadella to do it instead.
"I think you should start. I know myself, this is a 24-hour race. We're starting fourth and I know I'll immediately want to fight everyone. It's better if you take the start," Verstappen said.
Three sentences. No bravado, no false modesty. Just an admission, in private to his teammates, that his Formula 1 instincts — the same instincts that have delivered four world titles — were the wrong instincts for the opening laps of a 24-hour endurance race on the most demanding circuit in the world.
Juncadella, a long-time Mercedes factory driver with previous Nürburgring 24 experience, took the start as asked. He held the #3 entry in the leading pack throughout his opening drive and then handed Verstappen a clean car for a double stint. By the time Verstappen got out for his first run, the immediate chaos of lap one — always the most dangerous phase of the N24 — was behind them. The car was running in the top three.
The wider context makes the moment more striking. Verstappen had wanted to do this race for years, had spent months preparing for it in the simulator and even publicly indicated he was eyeing Niki Lauda's old F1-era endurance record as motivation. He could easily have insisted on the start. Instead he made the call himself, and made it because, in his own words, he knew he would race the opening laps the way an F1 driver races every opening lap.
A 24-hour race does not reward that. The defining instinct of F1 — attack on the brakes, decide on the first lap who you are racing — is the same instinct that ends endurance entries before sunset. Juncadella's job was to keep the car out of trouble through Adenauer Forst and the Karussell in the opening hour, and that was exactly what he did.
It was not a fairytale weekend in the end. A drive shaft failed on the #3 car with three hours of the race left while Verstappen was still in the lead group, ending the Mercedes-AMG entry's chances of a podium and forcing the Dutchman to walk back to the pits in a quiet rage. He has already publicly committed to returning to the N24 in 2027.
The Friday-night moment, though, will linger in the paddock long after the mechanical failure has been forgotten. For a driver whose entire reputation has been built on the willingness to take a corner that other drivers would not, the line "I know myself" is an unusual and revealing admission. It speaks to a Verstappen who understands his own racing brain well enough to override it when the discipline of the race demands it.
In that sense, the call to hand Juncadella the start was not a step back. It was, by Verstappen's own measure, a step forward.
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*Originally published on [News Formula One](https://newsformula.one/article/verstappen-i-know-myself-juncadella-nurburgring-24-fight-everyone-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
