Motorsports have lengthy been a pay-to-play enviornment, with younger drivers spending 1000’s of {dollars} simply to get began in karting. Four-time Formula One champion Max Verstappen is aware of this all too properly, however he additionally sees a option to change it via sim racing, a digital type of automobile racing that carefully replicates real-world racing.
It’s possibly much less loopy than it sounds. The sport has advanced right into a critical proving floor for expertise, with detailed setups and tire administration — minus the crushing monetary barrier. In truth, Verstappen, a passionate sim racer himself, believes one of the best digital drivers deserve a shot in actual automobiles.
His final imaginative and prescient, he tells The Athletic, is creating his personal racing group, one which merges elite sim racers with conventional racers. While sim drivers lack expertise with G-forces, Verstappen thinks coaching and the correct teaching can bridge the hole. He says sim racing has improved his personal driving, and vice versa.
“Everyone always thinks that it’s just a game and it’s fun, easy going,” Verstappen tells the outlet, “but I would say the competition is just as hard, or even harder, to nail — to win — than in real life.”
