Max Verstappen lands in Avignon after a pre-Nürburgring pit stop at Red Bull’s factory.

Max Verstappen flew from Münster Osnabrück Airport to Avignon Caumont Airport on May 18, 2026, a 77-minute hop in his Dassault Falcon 900EX, PH-DTF. The flight came hours after the Dutch driver had flown from the Nürburgring region to a small airfield near Milton Keynes for what Dutch outlet GPFans reported was the “bliksembezoek” — a lightning visit to the Red Bull factory amid a tough 2026 season where he sits seventh in the standings with 26 points.

That factory stop, on May 12, punctuated a week entirely devoted to Verstappen’s long-held dream: racing the Nürburgring 24 Hours. He is sharing a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with Jules Gounon, Lucas Auer, and Daniel Juncadella. The event sold out its weekend tickets for the first time in 56 years, per ESPN, and safety concerns over his popularity forced him to skip pre-race fan events entirely. His arrival in Avignon, near his Monte Carlo base, suggests he is retreating home before F1’s Canadian Grand Prix buildup.

The trip to Milton Keynes is a rare deviation from a pattern defined by shuttles between Monaco, the Netherlands, and race weekends. Verstappen has often said he finds endurance racing “more old school” and “less political” than the energy-management-heavy 2026 F1 cars. For now, the flight log reads like a driver balancing a fading title defense with a genuine passion project in the Eifel mountains.