{"id":611759,"date":"2026-04-16T23:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611759\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T23:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:49:10","slug":"max-verstappens-gt3-rise-praised-by-f1-safety-car-driver-bernd-maylander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611759\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen\u2019s GT3 rise praised by F1 safety car driver Bernd Maylander"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Formula 1&#8217;s safety car driver Bernd Maylander has praised Max Verstappen for his\u00a0foray into GT racing, revealing that he is eagerly watching the four-time F1 champion&#8217;s endurance arc.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/C45_zPRNcdY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">F1 Beyond The Grid podcast<\/a>, Maylander, who is a former winner of the Nurburgring 24 Hours, shared his enthusiasm for Verstappen&#8217;s recent outings in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/team\/mercedes\/5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Mercedes<\/a> GT3 machinery at the legendary German circuit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The basics are somehow similar,&#8221; Maylander said when asked if what Verstappen is racing in is similar to the Mercedes AMG GT Black Series that he pilots as the F1 safety car.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So the basics, front, middle engine, transaxle, the balance, but in the end, the GT3, it&#8217;s a proper racing car. This car is developed just to be a race car on a racetrack with much more downforce, less weight, but the basics, you can say it&#8217;s a kind of.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The safety car, we\u00a0have different rules. So it should be a road car. We have nearly 200 horsepower more than the GT3 car, but we are much heavier. We have to use road tyres. So the balance in the end, it&#8217;s something different. We have to cover the safety part as a safety car, and we don&#8217;t want to win the race. That&#8217;s a different job.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Maylander added that he was impressed by Verstappen&#8217;s GT3 outings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Absolutely. In general, the whole motorsport and\u00a0GT world is keeping an eye on what he&#8217;s doing at that racetrack because the new Nordschleife, that&#8217;s where I started everything when I drove my private car every weekend, after I got my driving licence.<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776383350_431_3-mercedes-amg-team-verstappen.jpg\" alt=\"#3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing, Mercedes AMG GT3 EVO: Max Verstappen, Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">#3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing, Mercedes AMG GT3 EVO: Max Verstappen, Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That was my track to learn how to drive quickly. It was not always safe, but I never crashed in a private car. Yeah. But he&#8217;s doing a fantastic job up there, and I think everyone loves it. It&#8217;s pure racing. It&#8217;s a very difficult track. It&#8217;s difficult to overtake.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You need a lot of passion sometimes to get the right moment to overtake someone, especially in the GT3 cars. It&#8217;s fantastic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>            We want your opinion!<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-auto\">What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n<p>            <a href=\"#\" class=\"ms-link text-link font-bold\">Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-1 text-body\">&#8211; The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1&#8217;s safety car driver Bernd Maylander has praised Max Verstappen for his\u00a0foray into GT racing, revealing that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,260773,239802,817,813,816,825,297181,85,1511],"class_list":{"0":"post-611759","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-bahrain-gp","11":"tag-bahrain-international-circuit","12":"tag-f1","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-max-verstappen","16":"tag-max-verstappenu2019s-gt3-rise-praised-by-f1-safety-car-driver-bernd-maylander","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-trendingteam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611759","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=611759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}