Dani Juncadella believes Max Verstappen’s debut appearance at the Nürburgring 24 Hours has given the four-time F1 drivers’ champion ample reason to return next year, following the cruel mechanical failure that denied their #3 Mercedes victory.
The Spanish driver, who shared the car with Verstappen, Jules Gounon and Lucas Auer, was at the wheel when a driveshaft issue struck whilst leading the sister #80 Mercedes by a comfortable margin, ending what had been a dominant run to victory in the German endurance classic with under four hours on the clock.
Speaking to Viaplay after the race, Juncadella suggested the event’s global reach, amplified by Verstappen’s presence, had showcased endurance racing to a new audience.
“Not only the fans, for the people watching, it was great,” he told Viaplay. “Ourselves as well, even Max. Of course, he’s disappointed with not being able to win, because we all want to win. But we had a lot of fun, he had a lot of fun.”
The problems began almost immediately after Juncadella took over the leading car from Verstappen, with an ABS warning appearing on his dashboard.
“Early on, out of the pits, everything felt kind of okay. Didn’t really feel like there was any issue, but then after a couple of corners, I started seeing a message on the screen that we had an ABS failure,” the Spaniard explained.
“I tried to reset that; it reset itself, but then it came back again. So, basically, I was driving without ABS in the car, but I adjusted that with the brake balance a little bit to try to drive around, and it was actually not that bad. I felt I could still race with that issue.”
Random failure, not incident-related
What appeared to be an electronic problem quickly escalated into something far more serious. Within a lap, Juncadella knew the car was suffering a terminal mechanical failure.
“And then after like one more lap, I started hearing some noises in the car, in the drive shaft, in the gearbox, and getting worse and worse and worse, and at some point it was just: the car started to feel very loose, something was completely loose,” he said.
“It felt like something was going to break, so I drove slowly back to the pits, and we encountered an issue in the drive shaft that broke, and that’s motorsport sometimes.”
The team spent nearly four hours repairing the damage before sending the car back out for a symbolic final lap, but any hope of victory had long since evaporated. The #80 Mercedes of Maro Engel, Luca Stolz, Fabian Schiller and Maxime Martin inherited the lead and cruised to victory.
Juncadella was keen to stress the failure was simply bad luck rather than the result of any on-track incident or driver error.
“Nah, I think it’s totally unrelated to any incidents. It’s just something that sometimes happens,” he said. “Motorsport can be cruel, and that’s part of the game. There’s some things that you cannot control sometimes, and unfortunately, it was very much that way for us.”
Despite the heartbreak, Juncadella believes the exposure Verstappen’s participation brought to the event, which drew a sell-out crowd and unprecedented global attention, has laid the groundwork for future attempts.
“We showed the world that there’s more things other than Formula 1 that can be cool to watch, and that’s going to help grow the sport even further, and maybe now there’s a reason to come back next year,” he said.
Verstappen himself described the failure as “a very bitter pill to swallow” but made clear before the race that the Nürburgring 24 Hours was an event he wanted to tackle “every year”, suggesting the disappointment will only fuel his determination to return and finish what he started.
