{"id":369831,"date":"2025-12-24T23:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T23:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369831\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T23:53:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T23:53:10","slug":"verstappens-gt-team-in-multi-year-mercedes-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369831\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen’s GT team in multi-year Mercedes switch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen’s eponymous Verstappen.com Racing team has switched GT manufacturers to Mercedes as part of a multi-year deal.<\/p>\n

The four-time Formula 1 world champion’s team, the entry for which will be operated by 2Seas Motorsport, will compete in the GT World Challenge Europe with the Mercedes-AMG GT3 from 2026.<\/p>\n

That marks a move away from the Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 it fielded this year, when simracing convert Chris Lulham (who alongside Verstappen won the NLS9 race on the Nurburgring Nordschleife<\/a> in September in a Ferrari) and Thierry Vermeulen (the son of Verstappen’s manager, Raymond) clinched the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup in the Gold Cup class.<\/p>\n

For 2026, Lulham will be partnered in the five-round Sprint Cup by Aston Martin F1 simulator driver and Genesis World Endurance Championship signing Dani Juncadella.<\/p>\n

The pair will then be joined by works Mercedes driver Jules Gounon for the Endurance Cup, which also consists of five rounds.<\/p>\n

The involvement of Gounon, who also represents Alpine in the WEC’s Hypercar class, automatically places the car in the Pro category.<\/p>\n

This move comes after Verstappen, whose 2025 campaign included a first major foray into GT racing, drove a Mercedes-AMG GT3 at Estoril<\/a> earlier this month as part of a programme operated by 2Seas in which he shared driving responsibilities with Gounon.<\/p>\n

Though Verstappen, who is contracted to Red Bull in F1 until the end of 2028, has expressed interest in contesting the Nurburgring 24 Hours – a separate, standalone event that is not part of the GT World Challenge – following his Nordschleife win, it is thought likely he will postpone any entry.<\/p>\n

That would be to prioritise his 2026 F1 campaign, as both the chassis and engine regulations are being overhauled.<\/p>\n

Verstappen’s Nordschleife win came in a Ferrari 296 GT3 run by Emil Frey Racing, rather than the Aston Martin his team campaigned in the GT World Challenge.<\/p>\n

Were Verstappen to compete in the Nurburgring 24 Hours, rumours have suggested he would like to take on the race in a Porsche 911 GT3 R.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen’s eponymous Verstappen.com Racing team has switched GT manufacturers to Mercedes as part of a multi-year deal.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-369831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}