Max Verstappen moved the Red Bull-liveried Mercedes into the lead of the Nurburgring 24 Hours during his first two stints in the car.

Dani Juncadella started the Team Verstappen car from fourth, moving up to third almost immediately and then challenging the polesitting Red Bull-backed Team Abt Lamborghini into the second turn of the Nurburgring Nordschleife. 

Juncadella made slight contact with the Lamborghini that had Mirko Bortolotti at the wheel, something that triggered a rear-left puncture for Bortolotti by the time he’d made it to the final chicane of the Nurburgring grand prix circuit.

Juncadella survived that contact and a lairy moment on the grass while trying to overtake the new race leader, Marco Mapelli in the #130 Lamborghini, one that cost him two positions.

Mapelli picking up a 32-second time penalty for a jump start gained him one of those positions back as Juncadella handed over to Verstappen around the one-hour mark.

Verstappen’s first stint wasn’t without incident either as he briefly went airborne over a bump and touched the barrier at Pflanzgarten.

But things soon got back on track as Verstappen made some impressive moves across back-to-back stints in the car - including an on the grass overtake on the #47 Mercedes of Jesse Krohn.

Verstappen’s most important overtake was a far simpler one as he passed Ayhancan Guven in the Manthey Racing-run Porsche #911 down the inside of Turn 1 of the grand prix circuit. 

That was essentially for the net lead of the race, which became the actual lead once Verstappen made moves in quick succession on the out-of-sequence Dennis Olsen in the #64 Ford Mustang and Christian Krognes in the #34 Aston Martin. 

It meant Verstappen was leading the race by just over 20 seconds when he had the car over to Jules Gounon right on the three and a half hour mark.