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Max Verstappen stars with 15-place charge in 45 minutes: 'I learned a lot and had fun'

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At Portimao, Max Verstappen’s race with Chris Lulham and Ben Barnicoat was marked by some excellent overtakes and battles, but a penalty forced the #3 Mercedes down to 24th place, from where the Dutchman climbed back to ninth in the final hour of the race

Max Verstappen's first outing in GT World Challenge Europe ended with ninth place in a comeback drive at Portimao on Saturday evening.

The #3 Mercedes prepared by 2 Seas and carrying Verstappen Racing branding, which the Dutchman shared with Ben Barnicoat and Chris Lulham, was a factor throughout all three hours of the race.

Barnicoat took the start, doing superbly to avoid the chaos at the first corner and able to make the most of his opportunities and incidents and penalties ahead of him to climb from 14th to 8th over the first hour of a race that was neutralised twice by the safety car.

Having handed the #3 AMG to Lulham, the young Briton continued the charge; Lulham's outside pass on Thomas Drouet's #64 Ford-HRT at Turn 7 earned him sixth position.

But that is where things went wrong as, shortly after the restart from a safety car, at Turn 8 Lulham dived down the inside under braking on Luca Stolz. The driver of the #48 Mercedes 'Mamba' shut the door and the collision sent the Winward AMG into a spin, causing an inevitable drive-through penalty for the car in Red Bull livery, which dropped down to 24th.

The final hour fell to Verstappen and that is where the fireworks began after the safety car restart: in the final 45 minutes, helped also by battles between drivers from other classes who did not want to lose time by holding up the Dutchman, the world champion carved his way through traffic with some fantastic moves - particularly with Tommaso Mosca's Ferrari - managing to regain a ninth place that, given how things had turned out, is certainly a result to be satisfied with.

#3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing, Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO: Max Verstappen, Chris Lulham, Ben Barnicoat

Foto di: SRO

“Overall, we had a decent weekend. Unfortunately, we made a mistake with the car set-up during qualifying, which meant the car was too low, scraping along the ground and making a few too many sparks," Verstappen acknowledged.

"That compromised the performance and, as a result, we were unable to qualify where we should have. We changed the set-up for the race and we were much more competitive.

"Ben did a great first stint, managing to avoid the confusion at the start and bringing us into contention. Chris also started his stint brilliantly, gaining a good position. But then, unfortunately, a slightly bold move on the Mercedes ahead of us cost us, obviously, a deserved penalty.

"That meant I had to restart my stint from 24th position. But I enjoyed myself and the pace of our car was really good. It was a frantic race, there was quite a bit of chaos around me because everyone wanted to move back up.

"In the end, finishing ninth after recovering from that drive-through, I think, was really a very good result. So, overall, even if it was not what we wanted, we learned a lot and it was a positive weekend."

Barnicoat added: “It was a great honour to race for Verstappen Racing this weekend, my first race with Mercedes after more than a year; and I hope it won't be the last".

"Unfortunately it didn't go quite as we hoped. Max drove an incredible final stint, gaining 15 positions and bringing us up to 9th place: it was really impressive."