Verstappen Racing finished ninth in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup race in Portimão.

Max Verstappen, taking a break between F1 triple-headers, along with Ben Barnicoat and Chris Lulham were compromised by while battling for fifth when they were handed a drive-through penalty.

Starting from 13th on the grid, Barnicoat was up to 8th before handing over driving duties to Lulham, who subsequently progressed to 6th.

However, an incident which saw Luca Stolz spin off resulted in the drive-through which dropped the British driver to 24th with less than an hour remaining.

Verstappen, coming off the back of back-to-back F1 wins in Malaysia and Singapore, took over for the final stint, and despite his best efforts - and some typical Verstappen moves - could only manage ninth at the flag.

At the restart, following a late Safety Car, the Dutchman was 19th, but was soon setting fastest laps and in one typical move the four-time world champion passed three rivals in one corner.

As an indication of his determination, with only 15 minutes remaining he was still in 15th.

On his way to ninth, Verstappen passed Arthur Leclerc and was in the process of battling for eighth when the flag fell.

"Overall, we have had a decent weekend," the Dutchman told his own website post-race. "Unfortunately, we made a mistake with the setup of the car in qualifying, which meant that the car was sparking a little bit too much for performance. So, we didn't qualify where we should have qualified. We adjusted the set-up for the race and we were a lot more competitive.

"Ben had a really great first stint staying out of the carnage at the start and driving us to the front," he continued. "Chris also started his stint really strong, putting himself in a good position. But then, unfortunately, a little bit of an opportunistic move on the other car ahead meant that, of course, we received a deserved drive-through penalty. That meant I had to go from P24 in my stint.

"But I had fun and the pace of our car was really good. It was very hectic with a lot of chaos around me to get to the front. But in the end, to finish ninth, recovering from that drive-through, I think was really strong. So overall, although it was not the result that we wanted, a lot has been learned and it was a positive weekend."

Picture Credit: Verstappen.com