What happened in Verstappen's final Nurburgring qualifying session
Max Verstappen booked his team a place in the Nurburgring 24 Hours pole position shootout after a nervy end to his final qualifying session.
Qualifying for the Nurburgring 24 Hours started in name on Thursday with two sessions, but the three 'top qualifying' sessions on Friday were always going to decide the lead places on the grid.
Top qualifying featured the over-40-strong SP9 class (for GT3 cars) being cut down through the qualifying segments.
The first two segments (top qualifying 1 and 2) ran back-to-back on Friday morning.
Lucas Auer put the Red Bull-branded Mercedes he is sharing with Verstappen, Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella fourth in qualifying 1, easily enough to qualify for Q2 with the fastest 20 cars going through.
Mattia Drudi was fastest in the #34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin, with an 8m12.135s, the fastest lap of the event at that stage.
The pace ramped up in qualifying 2 and, while Verstappen lowered the bar to an 8m11.614s, there were a series of late improvements.
Verstappen completed his laps early, so those late improvers threatened to knock Verstappen out of the top seven he needed to be in to secure his team’s place in the pole position deciding top qualifying 3.
Nick Yelloly set an 8m10.485s aboard the #130 Lamborghini Huracan to top the session, with Christian Krognes continuing a strong morning for the #34 Aston Martin in second place.
Ayhancan Guven ensured the 'Grello' #911 Porsche made it into the pole position shootout with the third-fastest time, ahead of Arjun Maini, who made it four different cars in the top four in a Ford Mustang GT3.
Another Mustang was fifth with Dennis Olsen at the wheel of the #67, with Verstappen ending up sixth fastest.
Verstappen ended up 1.129 seconds off the pace but ensured Juncadella can fight for pole position in top qualifying 3, which kicks off at 1.35pm local time.
The seven fastest cars from Q2 will join the five entries who already booked their place in TQ3 during prior Nurburgring events, such as last month's Qualifiers weekend.
Those are the defending champion, the #1 Rowe Racing BMW crew, the #16 Audi, the #45 Ferrari, the #47 Mercedes and the #84 Red Bull-sponsored Team Abt Lamborghini.
There was drama for what's effectively the sister car to Team Verstappen - the #80 Mercedes that's also operated by the Winward Racing team - as Maro Engel slid off the road into the barriers at Hatzenbach in the second top qualifying session.
His car had to be recovered back to the pits, spelling the end of that car's qualifying efforts and meaning one of the pre-event favourites will be starting outside the top 20.
