iRacing Nürburgring 24h: Verstappen Sim Racing wins, breaks distance record

After overall victory at the iRacing Sebring 12-hour, Verstappen Sim Racing has continued its iRacing special event success since changing name from Team Redline, with victory at the Nürburgring 24, breaking the distance record in the process. 

VSR locked out the front row, with #4 taking pole from #3, but as the race got underway, #3 settled into the lead, getting a gap just before the first stops.

They were caught again in the second hour, and the front group briefly grew to five, but some aggressive defending from their teammates ensured a proper lead for #3 after two hours. 

After nearly a third of the race, the gap between the teammates was around six seconds, but Diogo Pinto sped on the exit of pitlane in his eighth stop, handing the lead to #4 and second to Bleu Mecure Esports.

Unfortunately for the French outfit, a disconnection from Emanuele Olivieri took them out of contention shortly after. 

VSR returned to run one-two, but two hours later, #3 spun and scraped the wall. They continued their stint as normal to not disrupt their planned strategy, but the damage cost them well over half a minute. 

It created a three-way fight for second, against Drago Racing and WSR Esports in the best non-BMW in the race. Unfortunately, this would last only just over the halfway mark, as they all piled into an incident with a lower-class BMW M2 halfway around the lap. 

Drago was most affected, followed by WSR and the #3. By this stage, the #4 held a lead well over 90 seconds, but when Gustavo Ariel made his own contact with another M2, they received a meatball flag, which turned the race on its head.

The #3 now led, and WSR Esports in their newfound second place, then crashed soon after with 8:30 to go, ending hopes of a first Ferrari win for seven years. 

It was the turn of the #3 VSR BMW to lead by a minute, which they held over Williams and Falken Simracing, both with new ambitions of a podium finish. Falken’s ended with a solo crash at the final corner with just three hours to go, leaving Williams and a charging Drago Racing to fight for second. 

This continued right into the final minutes, but an extraordinary battle between Benedik Vida of Williams and Atte Kauppinen of Drago sadly ended when Drago Racing hit the incident limit in controversial circumstances, after contact with Vida.

But it was all behind Cooper Webster, who crossed the line with 10 seconds left to force a 177^th lap, never seen before in this event. 

Verstappen Sim Racing was able to take victory, with the biggest winning margin since 2021, ahead of last year’s winners, Williams Sim Racing and Drago Racing.

The Porsche Cup class title was defended by Coanda Esports, this time with a one-two finish, while Szese Esport held off SimRC in GT4 to win a class for the first time at this race. 

TCR was won by Scherer Esports for the first time in the closest finish, just ahead of WSR Esports, who they’d exchanged the lead with in the last quarter of the race, and the BMW M2 category was won by Simufy Esports after Grid and Go had crashes from the lead overnight.

A historic race, and unpredictable as always at the Nürburgring, but the red-hot form of Verstappen Sim Racing continues after a slow start to the season.