The #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing entry took pole position by 1.9 seconds and then backed that effort up in the four-hour race with a 59.5s win.
Verstappen was joined by Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella for NLS2 as they prepare for the Nurburgring 24 later this year.
They celebrated victory only to be told two hours later that they had been stripped of the win, which handed victory to the #99 Rowe Racing BMW M4 of Jordan Pepper and Dan Harper.
The team used seven sets of tyres, exceeding the maximum of six.
“The disqualification hurts,” said Winward Racing team principal Christian Hohenadel.
“Unfortunately, a mistake was made within our team, which forced race control to disqualify the winning car retrospectively.
“It was our first outing as the Mercedes-AMG Performance Team on the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
“I would like to apologise to everyone who was cheering us on.
“We will now analyse the day thoroughly, meticulously prepare for the upcoming races, and work with full concentration towards the ADAC Ravenol 24h Nürburgring.”
Stefan Wendl, head of Mercedes-AMG Customer Racing, acknowledged the disqualification.
“The NLS weekend will remain in our memories for a long time: we saw pure racing on the track, experienced an extraordinary day in terms of atmosphere and were initially delighted with the supposed race victory,” he said.
“The disappointment was all the greater when we realised that we had made a mistake behind the scenes that morning and the race organisers were forced to disqualify the winning car.
“That hurts, and naturally everyone involved is very disappointed. It shows once again that you can only win on the Nordschleife if everything comes together.
“Winward Racing, who managed the deployment of the two Performance cars, were competing in this line-up for the first time in the NLS.
“Now we need to analyse the mistakes, whilst also taking the positive lessons from the weekend on board and focusing on the remaining preparatory races as well as the 24-hour race.”
Tim Heinemann and Sven Muller inherited second place in the #44 Falken Motorsports Porsche 911.
Dylan Pereira, Tobias Muller, and Patrick Assenheimer were promoted to the podium in the #48 Porsche 911 under the 48 Losch Motorsport by Black Falcon banner.
NLS3 takes place on April 11. Verstappen could conceivably return to the Nurburgring for that race with the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix scratched from that weekend.
Discussion about this post