{"id":431395,"date":"2026-05-17T02:23:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T02:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/431395\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T02:23:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T02:23:20","slug":"f1-news-max-verstappen-shrugs-off-scary-airborne-nurburgring-near-miss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/431395\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news: Max Verstappen shrugs off scary airborne Nurburgring near miss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Split-Image-diagonal-copy.jpg\" alt=\"Verstappen shrugs off scary airborne Nurburgring near miss\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMax Verstappen went off during his first stint at the Nurburging 24 Hours.<\/p>\n<p>During his first stint, Verstappen was trailing the Christian Engelhart-driven #7 Konrad Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan when his car suddenly took flight at Pflanzgarten.<\/p>\n<p>The #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG went onto the grass and appeared to give the outside barrier a light graze.<\/p>\n<p>The close call came just over an hour into the race having taken the reins of the car from co-driver Dani Juncadella.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, we had a little moment,\u201d said Verstappen after his first stint.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I turned in a bit too early, and then, yeah, we had a little moment there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut it was fine. You just have to keep yourself together, stay calm, and just focus again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">max please dont ever do this again oh my god <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oXO9Za7Kh3\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/oXO9Za7Kh3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Verstappen News (@verstappenews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/verstappenews\/status\/2055652058015957101?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">May 16, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Verstappen enjoyed his first stint, which saw him drive through to the lead of the race and pit with a 25-second lead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was good,\u201d said the four-time F1 champion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInitially, of course, I was a bit stuck in traffic, so it was a bit difficult to clear the cars.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut once I cleared a few of them, and then the weather kicked in with a few laps of slippery conditions, that\u2019s the thing where we made a difference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then the car was good. I mean, yeah, trying to stay out of trouble, but at the same time, you have to push and you have to try and be on the limit, which is always a difficult compromise to find, but it worked out fine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the time of publication with 14 hours to go in the Nurburgring 24 Hours, the #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG is fourth overall. The race is led by the #99 Rowe Racing BMW M4.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/b\/250635\" rel=\"nofollow sponsored noopener\" data-bid=\"1\" data-no-instant=\"1\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none; vertical-align: middle;\" src=\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/a\/250635\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen went off during his first stint at the Nurburging 24 Hours. During his first stint, Verstappen&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,1732,213],"class_list":["post-431395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-slot4","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}