Portimão GT3 race: GetSpeed wins as Verstappen's final stint recovers from 24th to ninth

No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG won the three-hour GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup race at Portimão, which finished early on October 18 China Standard Time (UTC+8). No. 80 Lionspeed and No. 2 Boutsen VDS Porsches were second and third. Verstappen's No. 3, shared with Ben Barnicoat and Chris Lulham, was ninth in the official results.

From 24th to ninth in Verstappen's final stint

No. 3 started thirteenth. Verstappen took over in 24th and recovered fifteen places to finish ninth. Its 94 laps took 3:01:56.872, 18.556 seconds behind the winners.

Barnicoat drove the opening stint. In his post-race website interview, Verstappen praised his teammate for avoiding the start-line chaos and moving forward, and said Lulham initially had a good position. Lulham then collided with the car ahead, earning a drive-through and leaving the final-stint recovery to Verstappen.

Lulham's collision penalty before the final recovery

Stewards' decision No. 30 confirmed Lulham caused an avoidable Turn 8 collision with No. 48, earning No. 3 a drive-through and one behavior warning point. Verstappen said the drive-through was deserved. Lulham was the responsible driver; the warning point was not a deduction from the crew's championship points.

The race report said a Safety Car also interrupted Verstappen's progress. He kept recovering in fading light after the restart. He said a qualifying setup mistake was corrected for a more competitive race car.

GetSpeed leads the finale as No. 58 is disqualified

Ralf Aron, Maximilian Götz and Fabian Schiller's No. 17 completed 94 laps and won by 5.062 seconds. No. 71 Selected Car Racing was fourth overall and won Gold; No. 30 WRT won Silver and No. 222 2Seas Bronze. Rossi's No. 46 WRT completed 75 laps and was 49th among classified cars, nineteen laps down.

After publishing results, officials issued penalties for several cars breaching Full Course Yellow procedures, including time and drive-through penalties. Decision No. 61 disqualified Garage 59's No. 58: its rear-wing Z position measured −6 mm against the applicable BoP minimum of 0 mm, non-compliant even with ±5 mm tolerance, and repeat checks confirmed it. Decision No. 62 fined No. 19 Motopark €2,000 for sponsor-marking breaches without additional time or position penalty.

Race results

The official sheet lists 61 entries: 51 classified, nine not classified (NC) and one disqualified (DSQ), while its header records sixty starters. Same-lap gaps below a minute use seconds; above a minute use minutes:seconds.milliseconds. “Laps” are laps behind the winner; total time retains hours, minutes and seconds. Positions below include penalties in the official results. The DSQ row lists no laps, total time or gap, shown as “—”.