Red Bull’s Formula One driver Max Verstappen spent his Saturday away from F1 winning a GT3 endurance race in a Ferrari.

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Max Verstappen won Saturday’s GT3 race at the Nordschleife (Image: Getty)

Max Verstappen spent his Saturday away from Formula One duties by winning on his GT3 endurance debut at Nordschleife. Verstappen shared a Ferrari 296 GT3 car with British racer Chris Lulham and won in style, by over 24 seconds, at the iconic 12.9-mile track at the Nurburgring in Germany.

Verstappen and Lulham were competing in a four-hour race as part of the Nurburgring Endurance Series and came out on top in a field of more than 100 cars. Four-time F1 world champion Verstappen, who is likely to relinquish his crown this season to either McLaren man Oscar Piastri or Lando Norris, started the GT3 race from third and only needed a few corners to take the lead of the race.

Before long, the Dutchman led by more than a minute. Lulham, 22, kept control in the second half of the race as the pair won the race comfortably. Lulham competes for Verstappen’s own team in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup and is a member of his Team Redline sim racing squad.

Verstappen said on Instagram: “That was fun!!! Felt great to be back at Nordschleife and to take the win with @chrislulham20. Until next time!”

And he also said from the circuit dubbed ‘the Green Hell’: “The first two stints went really well, the car worked perfectly in the dry. We had a bit of bad luck in qualifying, but in the race everything with the traffic worked out fine.

“I think I didn’t make any major mistakes in those two stints. And to win here on my very first attempt, that’s just fantastic.”

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Max Verstappen raced in a Red Bull-branded Ferrari 296 GT3 (Image: Getty)
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Max Verstappen won on his GT3 race debut at the Nordschleife (Image: Getty)

Verstappen has previously labelled it “very important” to be able to race outside of F1 and he added: “Of course, I would really like to compete in the 24 Hours [of Le Mans] at some point. If it happens next year, I’ll say so – but we still need more experience. That’s the way it is, so hopefully we’ll do more races here next year.”

It continues an excellent few weeks for Verstappen who has secured back-to-back Grand Prix wins in F1 to trim the gap to the McLaren duo atop the Drivers’ Championship. He is only 44 points behind Norris but trails championship leader Piastri by 69 points still, making a fifth successive title a slim possibility still.

Between his wins at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and Italian Grand Prix, Verstappen earned his licence to race at Nordschleife with a Porsche GT4 car.