It’s the return of the Green Hell’s showpiece event as Lamborghini lock out the front row for the first time, with Max Verstappen making the headlines before we’ve even begun. Can he cement his status as one of the true greats of our sport with a win here and break Mercedes’ longstanding curse that has stood now for a decade? It will certainly be no easy feat, as this year’s edition has attracted a record high of 41 SP9 entries all set to battle it out over the next 24 Hours.

As the sun began to rise and the sky flared pink, the Winward pair continued on having survived the night, with the #3, now of Joules Gounon still holding onto the gap Max Verstappen had originally opened up, as Sheldon Van Der Linde and Nicki Thiim still ran third and fourth in the #99 ROWE BMW and Walkenhorst’s #34 Aston Martin. The big story as the sun came up concerned the pole-sitting #84 Team Abt Lamborghini. A lap down it may have been but Mirko Bortolotti was hustling his car and lapping as the quickest man on track consistently, even setting the overall fastest lap of the race with an 8:10, the crew clearly on a mission to retake the lead they never got the chance to hold.

Meanwhile at their next stops, with the gap to the ROWE #99 BMW stabilised at roughly 3 minutes the Winward Mercedes pair were given ample time to change the brakes of both cars. As the sun continued to rise, both Winward cars were now the only ones on the lead lap, with Nicki Thiim’s #34 running a lap down in third and Dan Harper’s #99 two minutes behind it, with pit stops meaning that both they and Bortolotti’s charging Lamborghini breifly returned to the lead lap. Jens Klingmann meanwhile was in the #81 M3 Touring and he too was rapidly closing on Dan Harper after the Aston made its next stop, the gap now at just under 20 seconds.

A sudden oil spill at the exit of Flutplatz saw a couple of SP9 runners take an excursion into the gravel trap and narrowly escape, before many other cars also hit strife, including Fabian Schiller’s #80, the #48 Porsche and Jens Klingmann’s #81 M3 Touring, but both miraculously survived without any damage or contact.

Ford had suffered trouble to all but its remaining #67 entry, but just inside the 16th hour Fred Vervisch picked up a puncture and lost considerable time limping back to the pits across the Nordschleife, dropping it back outside the top ten as the two Winward Mercedes cars pitted again with Lucas Auer taking over from Gounon while in the #80 Fabian Schiller resumed for his double stint.