Juncadella: N24 Victory Was “Meant to Be” Until Late Issue

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

Dani Juncadella said he felt victory in the Nürburgring 24 “was meant to be” until late-race heartbreak that took their Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo out of contention.

The Spaniard and co-drivers Max Verstappen, Jules Gounon and Lucas Auer dominated the 54th edition of the Eifel endurance classic and appeared to be en route to a famous win until Juncadella was forced into the pits with right-rear driveshaft failure with less than three hours and 30 minutes to go.

It came after another impressive double stint by Verstappen, when the four-time Formula 1 world champion, who extended his advantage over the sister No. 80 Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engel to more than 45 seconds before handing off to Juncadella during a regularly scheduled stop.

“Out of the pits everything felt okay,” Juncadella told Sportscar365. “But already one-third through the first lap I had an ABS failure message in the car that I tried to sort out.

“There was no real reason why it was happening, so I reset it. But then it came back on and then it stayed all the time on.

“It basically meant I had no ABS.

“But I could still somehow drive the car. The team wanted me to box to repair the issue but they didn’t know what to do really.

“I just kept driving because actually I felt I could get around it. I move my brake balance a little bit to the rear to make sure I didn’t lock the front tires.

“It was drivable. I had the feeling that it was a bit of a setback but maybe we could drive to the end like that.

“That was for two laps. But already through those two laps, I started to hear some noises, like in the gearbox or driveshaft, and it was getting worse.

“At some point I was feeling like something was loose or something was going to snap and I just drove slowly back to the pits because here, it’s dangerous to take too many risks like that.

“When we pitted, we found out we had a issue in the driveshaft. I don’t know exactly what it was but it was something getting loose on the driveshaft and created collateral damage in the rest of the car.”

Juncadella said the failure was made even more disappointing after their strong run that saw three of the four co-drivers escape close calls during the race.

“For sure it’s sad because it was looking really good,” he said. “We had a perfect weekend, perfect race,” he said. “We were so lucky on many occasions.

“I always feel you need to be extremely lucky here at the Nürburgring, with incidents, with traffic, with weather.

“The team made an amazing call on the weather when it was wet, we gained two minutes on the rest of the field going onto wet tires.

“Jules was super lucky in an incident that took away with the Manthey [Porsche] and the Ford with oil on track.

“It was meant to be for us but unfortunately the race was three hours too long.”

When asked if several off-course excursions by the car earlier in the race, including contact between Verstappen and Engel while battling for the lead overnight could have had a knock-on effect to the driveshaft failure, Juncadella said he “didn’t think so.”

“In fact, I’m pretty sure it did not contribute to that because… it’s motorsport,” he added. “There’s a lot of mechanical things involved and all the little moments we had, nothing was serious.

“The contact with Maro was very little. I had a contact at the start with the Lambo but only with the right-front and [it was] very little and it created no issue on our car.”

Juncadella, on loan from Genesis Magma Racing for this weekend’s enduro, praised Verstappen’s pace, professionalism and passion in the F1 super star’s N24 debut.

“Of course it hurts because he’s an extremely competitive human and he wants to win,” he said of Verstappen. “He will not leave this place happy without a win. That’s pretty clear.

“On top of that, I think we also saw how much he enjoyed racing out there.

“What he showed to the world, not only by committing to this, because that says a lot already about himself just having the balls to come here and race against the best of the best.

“But then also seeing him excelling in his driving and what he did was just incredible to witness.

“It was cool to be part of. We enjoyed it a lot, driving together, sharing everything together. We needed that cherry on the top with a win but it didn’t happen this time.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John