Fresh off his first major endurance racing victory in the Nürburgring 24 Hours, Fabian Schiller gets ready to chase a new highlight in the Spa 24 Hours. It will be his eleventh participation with Mercedes-AMG Motorsport – a manufacturer that has become his family.

For the 2026 edition of the endurance race in the Belgian Ardennes, Schiller teams up with Maxime Martin and Maxi Götz in the #17 Mercedes-AMG GT3. All sessions ahead of race day are done, and now anticipation is building up to the start of the race at 16:30h on Saturday.

Schiller and his teammates will aim to fight their way to the front of the grid from starting row 27. “The conditions are obviously crazy out there,” the 29-year-old tells GT REPORT in an interview. “It’s going to be the same for everyone, but it will be a test for man and machine for sure. It’s also tricky for the car in terms of the setup and so on.”

“The track does not have a lot of grip, but everything feels good so far,” Schiller says. “It’s all about getting the car back into a window where it works in these hot conditions and just fine-tune here and there. The basis is already there.” Therefore, data from the Prologue in May does not necessarily transfer to the race ahead.

“With GT World Challenge Europe, you know that, when it’s hot and there are sixty to seventy cars on track, and so much Pirelli rubber being laid down, things change compared to the testing days. The Prologue was good to get some information and also for my teammates to get used to the car. For them it’s the first time with GetSpeed.”

N24 win was a ‘relief’: “When the flag finally dropped on Sunday”

From the #17 Mercedes-AMG GT3 line-up, Schiller is the youngest driver – while he obviously brings a lot of endurance experience with the chassis too.  This year’s edition of the Spa 24 Hours marks the twentieth participation for Martin. With 2021 DTM champion Götz in the line-up too, Schiller considers the team very well-balanced.

“There’s a lot of experience with the two Maxi’s,” he laughs. “I’m obviously the youngest, but I’ve also been with Mercedes-AMG now since 2017. I’ve been around for quite some time already! I don’t think we have specific roles within the team. We’re just working well together and we have a great relationship. That’s the key going into a 24-hour race, especially when it’s a difficult one like this one.”

Martin and Schiller already worked together on multiple occasions, and the Nürburgring 24 Hours of 2026 is a great example. Mercedes-AMG Motorsport won for the first time since 2016, and it marked Schiller’s first major endurance victory. “With our schedules in GT3 racing, there’s barely time to really reflect on stuff,” Schiller says.

“For me, it was more of a relief that it finally happened. I’ve been trying so hard for so long and didn’t really have success in any of the big events. It was definitely a relief when the chequered flag dropped on Sunday. After that, you look at the images, you rewatch the highlights of the race, clips on Instagram.”

“I also didn’t want to celebrate it too much, because when you come from a high like that, and the next race is not going as planned, you can drop into a very big low. That’s something I try to avoid and there are, of course, other big races that are on the bucket list: like the Spa 24 Hours. I feel like it (the N24 win, ed.) is more of a motivation now for the races that are coming.”

Adding a Spa 24H win after Nürburgring? “I can’t tell you”

The 29-year-old driver knows that there are a lot of key factors in GT3 racing that need to come together to make it a big success: “It’s not always as straightforward as driving as fast as possible in a fast car. We’ve always had a very fast car with GetSpeed and Mercedes-AMG Motorsport, and in last year’s race we were leading for ten hours. Then something happens, like contact at night, a DNF, or whatsoever.”

Schiller does admit that it would mean a lot if he could win the Nürburgring 24 Hours and Spa 24 Hours back-to-back. His first 24-hour race in GT3 was the endurance classic at Spa-Francorchamps in 2017. “It’s always been up there, at the top of my list. As Nürburgring is my home race, Spa is kind of my favourite 24-hour race,” Schiller says.

“Spa is next on the agenda, of course. Hopefully we can tick that box. I can’t tell you now what it would mean to win here (after N24, ed.). I was thinking about it a little before: it would be amazing to do both in a row, but there’s so many things that have to go your way. It’s very difficult to achieve it. If it happens, it would for sure be an amazing thing. Especially for Maxime and me, who shared the car at Nürburgring and now here too.”

Schiller feels at home with Mercedes-AMG Motorsport family

It wouldn’t be just special to celebrate a back-to-back victory with Martin, but also with Mercedes-AMG Motorsport. Schiller cherishes the bond he has with the German manufacturer. They gave him the opportunity to continue racing when Schiller’s time in single-seaters and prototypes didn’t go as planned.

“I was lucky enough that they gave me a chance in 2017, and in 2020 I got my first contract to become a Mercedes-AMG Performance Driver. It’s my home and I feel very happy where I am,” he says. “I was pretty young back then and I felt welcomed early on. I was at a point in my career where I decided I didn’t want to invest money in racing anymore and wanted to make it myself.”

“In the last five, six years, Mercedes-AMG Motorsport have always placed me in good cars across many of their programmes. You have great customer racing teams and it’s pretty easy to build a name within their brand to become one of the top Performance Drivers. For me: it’s my home.”