One hundred days after Maro Engel took the chequered flag at the Nürburgring, the four drivers of the winning Mercedes-AMG GT3 #80 have gone back over the race in a team interview. The May victory was Mercedes-AMG’s third overall win in the ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring and its first for ten years, scored by Mercedes-AMG Team RAVENOL with Winward Racing running the car. Engel, Maxime Martin, Fabian Schiller and Luca Stolz describe a recovery drive from 25th place, a car rebuilt overnight after a qualifying crash, and preparation that began the day the 2025 race ended.
Mercedes-AMG has published a joint interview with the four drivers who won this year’s ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring, exactly 100 days after the finish. Maro Engel crossed the line in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 #80 on the afternoon of 17 May 2026 after 156 laps, sealing the third overall win at the Eifel classic for the Affalterbach performance brand and its first since 2016. The entry was run by Mercedes-AMG Team RAVENOL with Winward Racing as the operating team.
From 25th place to the front
The car started deep in the field and, according to the drivers, made up the deficit inside the opening fifth of the race — from 25th to the lead. Martin points to that early stint as the part he remembers as vividly as the finish.
“It was a very special feeling when the car crossed the finish line. I can still see the Mercedes-AMG GT3 #80 pulling up and us jumping on the roof to celebrate. But what also sticks with me is the early phase, when we worked our way through the field from 25th place in the first five or six hours,” Martin says.
Schiller was at the wheel when the #80 took the lead for the first time, a little over four hours into the race. Engel says the decisive call came when the rain arrived and the team picked the right tyres, allowing the car to break away from the field. A Mercedes-AMG GT3 led for 129 of the 156 laps.
The car that was rebuilt overnight
Asked to name the “quiet hero” of the weekend, three of the four drivers pointed at the crew rather than a driver. Engel crashed the car in qualifying on the Friday, and the mechanics worked through the night to put it back together.
“After the fairly heavy impact on Friday, they didn’t just rebuild the car — they sent it out on Saturday in top shape. That was an outstanding team effort,” Schiller says.
Engel singles out a team member named Phuc for the welding work after the crash, and adds that the team raced with a colleague in mind who had to stay away because of a serious illness.
Groundwork laid months earlier
All four describe the win as the product of a long preparation programme rather than a single good weekend. According to Stolz, Mercedes-AMG Motorsport began work on 2026 immediately after the 2025 race, taking strategic decisions on aerodynamics, set-up, tyres and the lighting concept. The team completed about a third more preparation days than in 2025, twelve of them on the Nordschleife.
Engel says the set-up philosophy was steered back towards earlier principles, with more emphasis on downforce and the GT3 positioned differently within its aerodynamic window.
“In the end, many people only see the race performance, but we laid the foundation in the months beforehand,” Stolz says.
What it means for the drivers
For Martin the win came at the 15th attempt; for Stolz it was a tenth 24-hour start with the Mercedes-AMG GT3 after three podium finishes. Engel notes the attention the race drew this year, partly through Max Verstappen’s entry — the sister car was run by Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing — and says congratulations came from Kimi Antonelli and Lando Norris, as well as from Bernd Schneider, his co-winner in 2016.
Facts: Mercedes-AMG Team RAVENOL, 24h Nürburgring 2026
- Result: overall win, 17 May 2026
- Car: Mercedes-AMG GT3 #80, operated by Winward Racing
- Drivers: Maro Engel (49 laps), Luca Stolz (39), Fabian Schiller (36), Maxime Martin (32)
- Race distance completed: 156 laps
- Laps led by a Mercedes-AMG GT3: 129 of 156
- Grid recovery: from 25th place to the lead within the first fifth of the race
- Preparation: around a third more test days than 2025, twelve of them on the Nordschleife
- Previous overall wins for the brand: most recently 2016
Mercedes-AMG published the interview and the accompanying figures from Affalterbach on 25 August 2026.
Source: media.mercedes-benz.com