{"id":479618,"date":"2026-02-14T14:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T14:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/479618\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T14:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T14:05:07","slug":"toto-wolff-makes-no-brainer-call-on-major-max-verstappen-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/479618\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff makes &#8216;no-brainer&#8217; call on major Max Verstappen change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Toto Wolff has stated it was a \u201cno-brainer\u201d decision for the Nurburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS) to change its race calendar to accommodate an entry for Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the NLS confirmed that it had moved the second race of the season to March 21, bringing it forward by one week to avoid a clash with the Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>This will allow Verstappen to partake in a preparation race ahead of the Nurburgring 24 Hours in May.<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen has long voiced his desire to drive in endurance competitions and last year won a four-hour race alongside team-mate Chris Lulham around the Nordschleife.<\/p>\n<p>The added spotlight that was put on the series pushed Wolff, alongside AMG, to lobby for this year&#8217;s change.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn&#8217;t me personally, it was AMG together with the NLS organisers,\u201d Wolff told media including RacingNews365.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s an obvious benefit for all the participants and for the series.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen&#8217;s entry at the Nordschleife last year drew incredible attention to the series, with the NLS live stream of the race currently tallying almost 350,000 views, while Sky Sports&#8217; coverage has over 175,000 views.<\/p>\n<p>Wolff stated the call to rearrange the schedule was an easy decision for organisers to make when they realised the impact Verstappen&#8217;s entry had last September.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don&#8217;t know the figures I heard, I can&#8217;t remember them, but between a normal NLS round, you have like 100 times more spectators on YouTube than with Max participating than otherwise,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was like 10,000 to 750,000 or something crazy, you need to read it up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo it&#8217;s a no-brainer to change it. It&#8217;s great for the Nurburgring 24 Hours, for the fans to have Max there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd obviously him driving a Mercedes is something we enjoy!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff has stated it was a \u201cno-brainer\u201d decision for the Nurburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS) to change its race&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-479618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","11":"tag-f1-calendar","12":"tag-f1-live","13":"tag-f1-results","14":"tag-f1-standings","15":"tag-ferrari","16":"tag-formula-1","17":"tag-lewis-hamilton","18":"tag-max-verstappen","19":"tag-motor","20":"tag-motor-sports","21":"tag-motorsport","22":"tag-motosport","23":"tag-motosports","24":"tag-racing","25":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479618","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=479618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}