Opinion: is Max Verstappen sim racing's biggest ally?

I enjoyed reading Jethro’s very even handed appraisal of Max Verstappen. I can absolutely relate to the struggle to reconcile the more confrontational aspects of Max’s personality with the cool purity of his electrifying on-track performances and complete disinterest in any activity that isn’t driving a car very fast. A few years ago, if you’d asked me if I liked Max Verstappen, I’d have wrestled with the question like a dog trying to chew a toffee. These days, though, I’m a self-confessed, unashamed, card-carrying Verstappen fan.

It’s not even to do with his performances in F1, though having just returned from the Hungarian Grand Prix where I watched him make overtake after overtake at the Turn 6 chicane, something no other driver seemed to be able to achieve, I’m thoroughly convinced by his talent. It’s mainly to do with how he brilliantly represents my beloved sim racing on the world stage.

For a start, after years spent in virtual competition, it’s clear Max has massive respect for top tier sim drivers, a respect he wants motorsport fans to share. He’s busy constructing an entire GT3 racing team, called Verstappen.com Racing, with the explicit goal of elevating talented sim racers into opportunities in real world racing, such as the Spa 24 Hours. This is the very definition of putting your money where your mouth is and given that a GT3 car starts at half a million euro, that’s a substantial amount of money to fit in the small area occupied by your mouth.

But then there’s the fact that if you pressed a gun to Max’s temple and asked him to choose between F1 and sim racing, there’s a greater than zero chance he’d actually pick the sim racing. A wild thing to say about a driver at the pinnacle of real world motorsport. iRacing seems to be Max’s happy place and his bond with his Team Redline teammates is easily as strong as his loyalty to Red Bull. Arguably more so, given that he’ll happily stay up until 3am the night before a Grand Prix to participate in a virtual 24 hour race with them.

More than anything, I think Max recognises what sim racing has given him. In an interview with Chris Harris, formerly of this parish, he explained that the tricky Red Bull F1 car isn’t specifically tuned to his tastes per se, it’s just he’s the only one able to adapt to its sensitivity. That adaptability, which has become Max’s calling card, is almost certainly a direct result of the wide variety of cars he regularly drives in simulators. It also may be the thing that gives his F1 career longevity as regulation changes trip up other drivers who are too comfortable with a particular driving style.

But then, you get the sense that Max will only stay in F1 as long as it suits him – there’s a lot of other stuff out there to drive and he clearly has a taste for that variety. The sim racing, though? I suspect that’s here to stay...