Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen has finished an impressive seventh in the CUP3 class in the four-hour ADAC ACAS Cup endurance race at the Nurburgring.
The Red Bull driver completed the outing in a Porsche Cayman on Saturday at the famed Nordschleife circuit, alongside British driver Chris Lulham.
In what was the seventh round of the NLS series, Verstappen and Lulham secured the impressive result after a stunning qualifying performance.
Verstappen’s lap time was around 15 seconds off the quickest time overall, but was an incredible 25 seconds ahead of the next car in the CUP3 class.
Verstappen’s 10:21.591 was just under 13 seconds quicker than his initial time, in what is a bid for him to score a specific licence to race at the Nurburgring 24 Hours in the future.
The ‘A Permit’ required for Verstappen to compete could only be obtained if he completed a minimum of 14 laps in the race, in two separate cars.
His first car, the Lionspeed team’s #980, was the one in which he completed all 14 laps, with a nervous wait after the team’s sister car, the #89, suffered a technical issue.
But Verstappen was able to drive just a matter of yards out of the pit lane towards the end of the race, meaning that he has completed the necessary steps to secure the permit.
It is not the first time that Verstappen has tackled the circuit dubbed the ‘Green Hell’, having tested a Ferrari 296 GT3 in May under the pseudonym Franz Hermann.
The test caused some considerable media attention, with claims that Verstappen had set an unofficial GT3 lap record.
Team-mate Lulham is known to Verstappen, being part of the Verstappen.com Racing team in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.
As well as this, Lulham is also a team-mate of the four-time World Champion in the Team Redline sim racing team.
The race began in what initially appeared to be an embarrassing fashion, as Verstappen immediately dropped a number of positions down the order, even before the first corner.
However, all was not as it seemed, as the Cayman had been detuned from 420bhp to 300bhp, as per the rules on drivers seeking to gain the licence for the 24 hour race.
Though this meant Verstappen had no realistic chance of winning his class, it enabled him likely to obtain the licence required for the race he has expressed keen interest in partaking.
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