Max Verstappen 20th in FP1 at GT World Challenge Europe Portimao

Max Verstappen was 20th in FP1 at Portimao GTWCE

16 Oct 2026

Four-time Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen was 20th overall at the end of opening practice for his GT World Challenge Europe debut at Portimao.

The Red Bull F1 driver is making his debut in the series’ season finale in Portugal due to the FIA World Endurance Championship clash at Barcelona.

Two of the No.3 Team Verstappen car’s drivers, Jules Gounon and Dani Juncadella, are in action in the Hypercar class at WEC Barcelona.

Max Verstappen will join Chris Lulham and Ben Barnicoat this weekend at Portimao for the Endurance Cup finale.

Verstappen is back in GT action this weekend

The opening two-hour FP1 session at Portimao saw Verstappen, Lulham and Barnicoat finish 0.403s off the pace in 20th in what proved to be a tight outing.

Verstappen was just 0.001s behind of 19th-placed No.66 Tresor Attempto Racing entry of Sebastian Ogaard, Rocco Mazzola and Ariel Levi.

The No.84 Eastalent Racing Audi of Christopher Haase, Simon Rechier and Markus Winkelhock led the way with a 1m42.643s.

The Audi crew were just 0.004s clear of the leading No.32 WRT BMW of Kelvin van der Linde, Jordan Pepper and Charles Weerts.

In third was the leading Gold class car of the No.99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi of Dylan Pereira, Andrea Frassineti and Alex Aka.

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A pair of BMWs followed, with the No.98 ROWE Racing car of Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann and Jake Dennis 0.003s behind the third-placed car.

Valentino Rossi’s No.46 WRT BMW was fifth, 0.063s off the best pace.

WRT announced this weekend that MotoGP legend Rossi will have a new team-mate for this weekend due to the WEC clash.

As well as being joined by GTWCE regular Max Hesse, newly-crowned IMSA GTD Pro champion Neil Verhagen has stepped in to replace Dan Harper.

Harper is in action at the WEC finale in Barcelona this weekend. This marks Verhagen’s first GTWCE outing since last year.

The No.17 AMG Team GetSpeed Mercedes was sixth overall, with the No.7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin in seventh as the leading Bronze class car.

The No.34 Aston trailed in eighth, with the No.51 Ferrari and No.30 BMW rounding out the top 10.

FP2 will take place from 12:45pm to 2:15pm BST, before qualifying begins at 5:55pm BST.

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Lewis joined the Crash.net team in August of 2024 having been a journalist for five years covering MotoGP for the Motorsport Network. In February of 2026, he became Head of Editorial.