Juncadella faces driveshaft issue
Soon after, Steven Windl revealed to fans, “After the pitstop from Max to Dani, Dani reported on the outlap an ABS failure, which leads us to assume that there is an electrical failure. We try to reset, and on the first lap, he could continue without losing too much time,”
“We prepared a pit stop and repair work, but in the second lap, he figured out that there was a noise and also vibration, which meant he had to come in and return slowly to the pit. There, we figured out that the driveshaft is broken, and due to this damage, there’s also been major damage in areas around the driveshaft, which makes a longer repair necessary.”
Verstappen Racing deals with DNF
Verstappen’s teammates react
After the race, all four drivers were understandably upset. Writing on Instagram, Jules Gounon said, “The word heartbroken probably doesn’t even come close to what we feel right now. We were doing everything right with Max, Luggi (Auer) and Dani (Juncadella), but the Green Hell had other plans. It’s crazy how this sport can give you the highest highs and, in the next moment, make you feel ten feet underground. At the end, an issue with three hours remaining took it away from us. Massive thanks to the whole team for the unbelievable work and effort. Need a little time away to process this one.”
In the comments of Gounon’s post, Verstappen commented, “We’ll be back mate!”
Lucas Auer shared his feelings with Mercedes-AMG, saying, “It was a very good race. Obviously frustrating, but I’m also proud of our group, and it was an absolute pleasure to share the car with the guys and with the whole team. I think we managed everything very well. Obviously, there was a lot of media attention, a lot more people, but we really were well organised, and at the end of the day, anyway, for GT3, it’s amazing what we’ve seen here.“
Theories floated around that the DNF could have been caused by Verstappen’s and Maro Engel’s collision during the nighttime stint. To that, Juncadella said, “No, I don’t think so. I mean, in the end, that was many, many hours ago, and I think it would be too tricky to really say that it’s due to… It’s just motorsport. It happens, unfortunately, it happened to us today, but I don’t think there’s anybody to blame.”