Jos explains: “We tested and the Skoda simply feels more comfortable. We’ve always had strong results with Skoda and we have a lot of information and data on the Belgian rallies, so that’s why.”

Ahead of the start, Jos said: “It’s a tricky rally because of the different types of asphalt, which means varying levels of grip. It will be a matter of finding our rhythm at the beginning. I expect it to be very close, and it will come down to the form of the day. The competition has a bit more experience here than I do, as they’ve driven here more often. We want to perform well. It will be important to stay focused and avoid mistakes.”

“It was a bit like yesterday”, said Max after a challenging session. “We had issues with the aero and I couldn’t attack a single corner. We had a lot of oversteer into the corner but than in the middle of the corner the car wouldn’t turn. It’s weird and I don’t really know what to make of it. The bad thing is that I’m not even angry any more, I’m past that stage.”

Although the pace has not been there throughout the weekend, FP3 appeared to be a slight improvement. “The car was more stable at the rear but there was still a lot of understeer, but in quali the car keeps stepping out into the high-speed corners. In the middle of the corner, it turns into understeer. We have a lot of problems and it changes what the issue is.”

Ahead of the Sunday’s Grand Prix, Max remains realistic about the issues he has had with the starts thus far in 2026. “The car doesn’t stall, but the starts are still very bad.”

“Yeah (the session) was not very good, to be honest.” Max shared truthfully after the training. “We struggled a lot more with balance of the car and grip. From our side there's a lot of work to be done, also to understand why we’re having a lot of problems. We need to work (on that), I don’t think it’s an easy fix overnight.”

When the lights at the end of the pit lane turn green, it is Nico Hülkenberg who is first out on track. That is not immediately the case for team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto, who struggles to get his Audi moving. At Aston Martin, Fernando Alonso sits out the session, with reserve driver Jak Crawford taking his place for FP1. Tyre supplier Pirelli has brought the three hardest compounds this weekend, as Suzuka is particularly demanding on tyres.

Founded in 2000 by Dom Duhan, Team Redline has established itself as the most successful sim racing team in the world, winning championships across the sport’s most competitive platforms, including back-to-back Esports World Cup titles in 2024 and 2025, PESC champions in 2022, 2024, and 2025, and the 2025 IMSA Esports Global Championship GTP title with BMW.

“For me, this whole weekend has been about getting to grips with the car on the Nordschleife. Which yes, it was super enjoyable,” says Max, reflecting on his second Nordschleife win. “The team also prepared the car really well, so we could do some decent testing. They made me feel really comfortable with the car. So yeah, really good experience for me.”

Max elaborated: “This whole venue is, of course, amazing. Also to see all the fans, and just how passionate they are about racing and the cars here – it’s always fantastic to see, and I’m happy to be a part of that. For me this is one of the craziest tracks in the world... in a good way! I’ve been watching this for a very long time, and it’s one of these races that you just want to compete in. And at least finally this year I have the chance to do it.”

In the Mercedes-AMG GT3-car, Max clocked a best lap of 7:51.751 on the 24 km Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit, finishing two seconds clear of his nearest competitors – the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II from Scherer Sport PHX, and the BMW M4 GT3 Evo from Rowe Racing op P3.

In 2025, Max claimed victory in NLS9 together with Chris Lulham, having earlier secured his Nordschleife permit. He quickly adapted to the challenges of GT3 racing, including traffic, changing conditions and long runs. In 2026, he builds on that experience with NLS2, which forms part of a broader programme.

Under the Verstappen Racing banner, in collaboration with Winward Racing and Mercedes-AMG Motorsport, the programme includes several rounds of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, with the highlight being the 24 Hours of Nürburgring in mid-May.

“We had problems with the ERS cooling”, said Max after the race, in which he endured another difficult start. “I always drop to last, so I might as well start from the back. It was just a difficult race with a lot of things going wrong. The car didn’t feel good, no balance, high tyre deg. There was also something wrong with the steering wheel, so there’s a whole list of things. I’m not even sure how I made it to sixth.”

Nevertheless, Max enjoyed seeing Kimi Antonelli clinch his first win. “Those are great moments. I’m really happy for him. It always takes away a bit of pressure when you win your first race and it won’t be his last. He’s a great guy; we get along great and he’s very enthusiastic about my GT3 program. He wants to drive together, so we’ll see what happens in the future. He has to focus on F1 now. His car is a rocket so he will be able to win more this season. We’ll have enough time to do other things in the future.”

On the topic of GT3, Max will contest the NLS2 race next weekend at the Nordschleife. “We’ll head there on Thursday evening and test on Friday. We’ll work on some stuff and for me it’s an opportunity to get up speed. In the race we’ll gather experience to get the car in the right window for the 24-hour race, that’s what it’s all about.”

“We’ve already made positive steps to improve energy management and have made improvements on the chassis side based on what we learned from Australia. We are making progress, but we are not quite there yet. Tomorrow’s sessions will bring major learnings to help us get closer to where we would like to be.”

“The whole day has been a disaster, pace-wise,” Max says after the qualifying session ahead of the sprint race. “No grip, and I think that’s the biggest problem, no grip and no balance. We’re losing massive amounts of time in the corners, and because of that, you start triggering other little problems. But the big problem for us is the cornering, it’s completely off.”

Max continues: “At the moment I don’t know what we can do, but we’ll see.”

Ahead of the start of the session, conditions are rather chilly, with an air temperature of twelve degrees and no rain expected. The track temperature is just fourteen degrees, which does little to help grip levels. With a sprint race scheduled for Saturday morning, the sole practice session is particularly important. Any reliability issues at this stage could have significant consequences for the remainder of the weekend. When the lights at the end of the pit lane turn green, the track quickly becomes busy. Both Haas cars are the first to head out.

The Nürburgring entry announcement is made in signature Red Bull style: Max Manow performed a 131-metre B.A.S.E. jump into a cooling tower, helping unveil the striking new Red Bull livery of the Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing.

At the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, it was George Russell who drove his Mercedes to pole position, ahead of his young teammate Kimi Antonelli in P2. Meanwhile, Max’s Oracle Red Bull Racing-teammate, Isack Hadjar, surprised everyone by driving his Red Bull to P3, ahead of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, who rounded out the top five.

“Nothing broken, so everything’s okay,” Max told the Viaplay press after qualifying. “The steering struck out of my hands.”

Max explained further: “I was braking, and suddenly the rear just locked up, and you can’t correct that. I haven’t looked yet to see what went wrong there. Something like that has never happened to me before. I was just braking, and suddenly the entire rear axle locked up, and you can’t fix that at that speed. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

Ahead of FP3 there is an announcement that the start of the session is delayed. Repairs to the track are still being carried out after a major crash during the Formula 3 sprint race that took place just before today’s free practice session. Work is also still ongoing at Aston Martin, specifically on Lance Stroll’s car. The team only has two functioning batteries available for the rest of the weekend, meaning we are unlikely to see many laps from Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso today.

At the end of the day, Max said: “In FP1 we did get in a good number of laps and in FP2 we found that we ran into a few issues. We are working on getting the set up right with the car and were struggling a bit with grip and also went into the gravel. We didn't have a full day of clean running but, pace wise, we are where I expected us to be. There is still a lot of work to do and we will analyse what worked and what we can improve on overnight and that is the reality at the moment.”

For the fourth year in succession, Vermeulen will team up with Emil Frey Racing, to compete in both the 2026 DTM Championship and the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Championship. He will drive the Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo in distinctive Red Bull livery, continuing the successful collaboration between driver, team and manufacturer.

Thierry Vermeulen, a Red Bull athlete, said: "I feel truly part of the team, I also made my DTM debut with Emil Frey Racing. It's great to continue together. This year, we are also driving the Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo and hopefully it performs well in DTM. The first goal is to win a race. That's very important to me. I want to show that it's possible. Last year, we had a few opportunities to accomplish that, but for various reasons, it didn't work out. Besides that, I just want to be consistent. I really believe we are fast enough, that we have the potential to be at the front all year long."

“It was a challenging rally against strong competition. We just made too many little mistakes and on the wet stage we just didn’t have the confidence. But in the end, we’re happy with third.”

Following the success of Jos’s rally program last year, the pairing heads into 2026 with strong momentum. The former Formula 1 driver impressed across multiple events in 2025, demonstrating consistent pace and stagecraft, leading to strong results that saw Jos and Renaud become the 2025 Belgian Rally Champions.

For the upcoming year, the pair will share a Citroën C3 Rally 2 prepared by the professional Sarrazin Motorsport team, established by the experienced French driver Stéphane Sarrazin. The car will feature the distinctive Verstappen Racing x Red Bull livery.

2026 marks the first time that Oracle Red Bull Racing is powered by their own power unit. The six days of pre-season testing proved a vital time of gaining an understanding of the progress made by the Milton Keynes based squad. “In general, I reflect on it pretty positively as we didn’t have many issues. I think it’s extraordinary how we put together a brand-new engine with so many new people. It’s amazing how well structured it’s all been.”

The Dutchman added: “Of course, in terms of performance, we’ll need to take another step to fight at the front, because realistically I don’t think we’d be able to fight for the win at the moment. To be fair, we didn’t expect that going into this new era of regulations, with our own power unit.”

With pre-season testing coming to a close, the teams are keen to have as much track time as possible, meaning all teams, apart from Aston Martin, are out straight away.

Honda, the power unit supplier of Aston Martin explains why the team is nowhere to be seen on track. “Our final run with Fernando Alonso yesterday, showed a battery related issue. We have been carrying out simulations on the test bench in HRC Sakura. Due to this and a shortage of power unit parts, we have adapted today's run plan to be very limited and consist only of short stints.”

After the second test day, Max briefly reflected: “Long day, a lot of driving, a lot of testing, race run completed – all in all good, I think!” When asked what the team has learned, he answered: “A lot of things. We just went through our testing program, there were a lot of things we still wanted to try – set up-wise, the gears... We did all of of it.”

Just after lunchtime, Max heads out of the pitlane for his first run of the afternoon. Earlier in the day, the Dutchman had already managed to complete 56 laps – just a little shy of a full Grand Prix distance. Later on, Max dazzles with a purple first sector, but loses some critical time in the second sector. However, his third sector is fast enough to take him to the top of the timesheets with a 1:33.444, edging out Lando Norris' best morning lap by just nine-thousandths of a second. Max set the lap on the hard prototype C3 tyre, while Norris had recorded his lap in on the softer C4.

When the lights turn green at 10:00 local time, the air temperature was 21 degrees, with the track at 31 degrees, both rising as the day progressed. It was busy on circuit from the outset: Oliver Bearman, Verstappen, Gabriel Bortoleto, Norris, Lewis Hamilton, Franco Colapinto, Russell and Liam Lawson all headed out on track immediately.

After 45 minutes, Max posted a 1:33.584 on the C3 compound, good enough at the time for P2, just one tenth behind Norris, who had set his fastest lap on the softer tyre. After the first two hours of the morning session, Max had completed 26 laps, while Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac Formula 1 Team) and Hamilton (Scuderia Ferrari) were at the bottom of the timesheets with four and five laps respectively.

Ferrari nevertheless drew attention with an innovative rear wing, featuring an upper element capable of rotating 180 degrees. In theory, this should reduce drag on the straights, potentially resulting in a higher top speed.