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Max Verstappen heads back to the Nurburgring Nordschleife this weekend for the qualifying races ahead of the 24 Hours in May. Alongside him will be Austrian driver Lucas Auer, and while it is their first time sharing a car, the two men have history going back more than a decade.
A Racing Family With Formula 1 Roots
Auer was born on 11 September 1994 in St. Johann in Tirol, Austria. He comes from a family where motorsport runs deep: he is the nephew of former Formula 1 driver Gerhard Berger. A career in racing was never really in doubt.
After success in karting, Auer moved through various Formula 3 championships before shifting his focus to endurance and GT racing. The connection to Verstappen dates back to 2014, when both competed in the European Formula 3 Championship. That season belonged almost entirely to Verstappen, who finished third in the championship with the spotlight firmly on him. Auer finished fourth, one place behind, but the path to Formula 1 was not available to him. He redirected his career toward GT racing, spending several years in the DTM among other series.
A Brief Spell in the Red Bull System
In 2019, Auer made an unexpected detour back into single-seaters, joining the Japanese Super Formula series under Red Bull colours as part of their junior programme. The arrangement did not last. After one season, Helmut Marko concluded that Auer was too old to be a realistic Formula 1 candidate and that accumulating the superlicence points required would be too difficult. He departed the Red Bull junior system and returned to GT racing.
How He Ended Up in Verstappen's Team
From there, Auer built himself into a Mercedes factory driver of real standing. He races regularly for Winward, the outfit that also runs Verstappen Racing. That connection is how he entered the 24-hour project, and this weekend at the Nurburgring he gets to race alongside the man he once chased through the corners of European Formula 3. With Daniel Juncadella and Jules Gounon committed to WEC obligations, Auer is the third name on the entry, and Verstappen gets a teammate he knows well and trusts.
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