Nurburgring 24 Hours: Qualifying explained as Max Verstappen competes in famous race

Nurburgring 24 Hours

Nurburgring 24 Hours: Qualifying explained as Max Verstappen competes in famous race

Qualifying this week is complex, but we have all the details

Graham Shaw Consultant Editor

Digital sports specialist running global brands for 30 years

Wednesday 13 May 2026 20:25 Updated: 08:46

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This weekend’s iconic Nurburgring 24 Hours race will be a spectacular event with F1 champion Max Verstappen centre stage, but before that we have the complexities of Qualifying at the famous German track. And when we say it's complex, we mean it.

The 28-year-old Dutchman will head up Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing for the gruelling test of speed and endurance, which means weekend tickets have already sold out for the first time in the event’s 56-year history.

With the race proper taking place on Saturday May 16 (3pm local time, 2pm UK, 9am Eastern in the US) and into Sunday, Qualifying takes place before that on Thursday and Friday (you can watch today's action live and free, right here).

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It is a complex process with a total of six different sessions taking place, but we have you covered with all the detail on how it actually works.

Nurburgring 24 Hours: Full schedule with session times for this weekend

How Qualifying works

Qualifying, as we said, is divided into six different sessions at the Nurburgring, with the first two-hour stint taking place on Thursday afternoon, May 14. In the evening, we have a three-and-a-half-hour session beginning at 8pm local time (7pm UK). On Friday afternoon, May 15, there is a third qualifying session of 65 minutes. However, Top Qualifying cars are not allowed to participate in this session.
So what is Top Qualifying you may ask? It’s a phrase you will become very accustomed to this week.

Top Qualifying

The three qualifying sessions mentioned above are purely free practice for Verstappen and his GT3 competitors; they only determine the grid for the lower classes.

The starting grid for SP 9 (GT3, including Verstappen), SP 11* (GT2), AT1, SP-Pro, and SP-X is determined in Top Qualifying, which is also divided into three different sessions.

Top Qualifying 1 on Friday morning lasts half an hour, and all 49 cars from SP 9, AT1, SP-Pro, and SP-X are expected to participate. The top 20 progress to Top Qualifying 2, which starts almost immediately after the end of TQ1, pretty similar to Q1 and Q2in F1.

Top Qualifying 2 also lasts half an hour, before the top 7 cars then proceed to Top Qualifying 3, but 12 cars in total participate in that session. This is because five teams have already secured a spot in TQ3. Those five teams do not have to (but may, if they wish) participate in TQ1 and TQ2.

It’s important to note that Verstappen DOES NOT have a spot guaranteed for TQ3, so his team will need to compete in all three Top Qualifying sessions.

Pole shootout, and who got guaranteed TQ3 spots?

Top Qualifying 3 is a pole shootout in which the 12 drivers are each allowed to complete two timed laps. Gaps are created between the cars to minimise the chance of drivers holding each other up.

The five cars already definitely in TQ3 are as follows:

1. #45-Ferrari van Realize Kondo Racing with Rinaldi
2. #16-Audi van Scherer Sport PHX
3. #47-Mercedes-AMG from KCMG
4. #1-BMW van ROWE Racing
5. #84-Lamborghini van Red Bull Team ABT

The seven remaining spots in TQ3 are therefore for the seven fastest teams from TQ2.

The five cars already safely into TQ3 are there because of their performances in the earlier races of the NLS and in the 24 Hours Qualifiers. Three spots were awarded to the cars with the theoretical best lap times from the qualifying and races of NLS1, NLS2, and NL3; one spot was awarded to the car with the theoretical best lap time from qualifying in the 24h Qualifiers; and one spot was awarded to the car with the theoretical best lap time from the races in the 24 Hours Qualifiers.

One other important thing to note here is that no one driver may participate in more than one Top Qualifying session. So Verstappen for example could not participate in TQ1 and TQ3.

Nurburgring 24 Hours Qualifying Schedule

The schedule for Qualifying this week looks like this (all times are UK):

Session	Day	Time (UK)	Duration
First Qualifying	Thursday, May 14	12:15 - 14:15	2 hours
Second Qualifying	Thursday, May 14	19:00 - 22:30	3 hours and 30 minutes
Top Qualifying 1	Friday, May 15	09:15 - 09:45	30 minutes
Top Qualifying 2	Friday, May 15	10:05 - 10:35	30 minutes
Third Qualifying	Friday, May 15	11:00 - 12:05	1 hour and 5 minutes
Top Qualifying 3	Friday, May 15	12:35 - 13:35	1 hour

Nurburgring 24 Hours: Rules and regulations as Max Verstappen races into action

Written by

Graham Shaw - Consultant Editor

Digital sports leader with 30 years of senior level experience running global brands. Built sportinglife.com to be a behemoth in the UK as well as being in charge of the Planet Sport network of sites including planetf1.com, football365.com, teamtalk.com and planetrugby.com. Then grew goal.com to be the world's biggest soccer website in 18 languages and 37 territories. Was GM of Portals for Perform Group (now DAZN) with overall responsibility for sportingnews.com, spox.de and voetbalzone.nl.

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