Max Verstappen’s passion for sim-racing is truly phenomenal, with Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko having revealed that the Dutchman has fitted a simulator in to his private jet, to ensure he is always practicing.
It remains to be seen if a driving simulator appears in any First-Class cabins anytime soon, with the Dutchman having the perfect “distraction” for a long-haul flight.
One circuit he probably won’t be practicing anytime soon is Le Mans, with the 25-year-old having sensationally quit the Le Mans 24 Hours Virtual, after losing the lead after disconnecting from the servers.
The annual event was ridiculed by server problems, with the race itself having been stopped twice following a “suspected security breach”.
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rFactor 2 was used to conduct the race, with the platform being owned by Motorsport Games, who own the rights to the event.
Verstappen’s team led the first seven hours of the race, before a server issue saw them kicked out of the race.
By the time they’d re-joined the server, they’d slipped to 17th and a lap and a half behind the new leader.
Instead of continuing and battling through the issues which ridiculed many, Verstappen’s team quit the race, with the double World Champion having labelled it as “clown show”.
Verstappen was furious, with the Dutch driver having ranted about the poor handling of the event to his Twitch stream.
“They call it amazingly bad luck, well this is just incompetence,” Verstappen fumed.
“It’s also the last time I’m ever participating in this race.”
The Red Bull driver received a mixed response for his outburst, with some jumping to defend him, whilst others criticised his rant.
Marko, though, isn’t concerned about what Verstappen said, with the Austrian also not expecting the Dutchman to stop sim-racing anytime soon.
“The opposite is the case,” Marko told Sport1.
“He even had his private plane converted so that he can drive a simulator in the air in the future. But that’s a good thing, because Max needs this distraction.
“It didn’t exactly do him any harm when it came to his two titles,” Marko noted.
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Verstappen was absolutely furious with the virtual race’s organisers, with it now remaining to be seen if he’ll stick to his word and not compete in the event next year.
“What’s the point?” he said after leaving the race.
“You prepare for five months to try and win this championship, you’re leading the championship, you’re trying to win this race which you prepared for two months, and they handle it like this.
“I mean there have been two red flags, they blame it on, I don’t even know what, people DDoSing the server… Honestly, it’s a joke. You cannot call this an event. It’s a clown show.”