That tension allows enthusiasts like 66-year-old Juha Miettinen to race the Nordschliefe, and it also puts them in situations such as the one in which he found himself, when (it is suspected) fluids dropped by another car caused a seven-car pile-up at Klostertal, and Miettinen — driving the #121 BMW 325i — lost his life.

Miettinen was a serious enthusiast of sports car racing in general and the Nürburgring in particular, having competed multiple times in the N24 and other events there since 2018, always in a BMW 325i. He loved this place, as all his fellow competitors do, whether they were Formula 1 world champions or devoted amateurs like he was.

The first day’s 24H Qualifiers race was red-flagged for the accident and not resumed. A minute of silence in memory of Miettinen was observed during the formation lap for the following day’s race, which was won by the #16 Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS GT3, driven by Christopher Haase, Alexander Sims, and Ben Green. The #3 Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Max Verstappen and Lucas Auer charged to the front early under Verstappen’s command, but mysterious front splitter damage sidelined them in the garage and took them out of contention. Verstappen insists he didn’t hit anything.

The racing goes on, but this year’s N24 will be raced in Miettinen‘s memory. I hope to see many tributes to him at the race.

Posavac posted on social media that he would enter a Z4 in the N24 this year if the post got 5,000 likes, and I salute the internet for making it happen.

I don’t want to give Max Verstappen credit for everything, but there sure are a lot of teams bringing cars to the N24 this year to try and beat him.

This event made Max very happy, of course, because instead of losing like he is in Formula 1, he got to win a race by over a minute with no competition, which is apparently very fun for him.

Unfortunately, the team won’t get to book the result because they used an extra set of tires in qualifying and exceeded their weekend limit, so the win goes to the Rowe Racing BMW of Dan Harper and Jordan Pepper. By blaming qualifying procedures, I guess Mercedes means to convey that they miscounted at that point, so they didn’t know they were short in the race. That, of course, would be publicly indistinguishable from knowing they were short and going, “Who cares? This is a test.”

Max proved his point, though: Everyone else racing in this year’s N24 should be scared of him.

Today just happens to be the day these lineups are coming out, but it does taste a little more delicious coming on the heels of the opening round of a Formula 1 rule set that Max viscerally hates. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see Max race in Formula 1 for a long time to come, but I also hope that sports car racing is increasingly where he has his fun in life.

I do not find this HWA car as straightforwardly cool as rolling out a Z4 GT3 for the simple reason that this is not the real car; it’s a road-going product they’re building and selling 100 of for almost $900,000 a pop. If it does, however, rip around the Nordschleife for 24 hours, I will hop in line to praise it.