Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen is keeping his instinct sharp during the winter break.
While other drivers have arrived at their teams to start pre-season testing – with Carlos Sainz already impressing at Williams – Max Verstappen is using another technique to get up to speed.
The Red Bull star’s obsession with sim racing continues and he’s already taking part in his first major event of 2025 in the virtual 24 Hours of Daytona.
Verstappen has been using sim racing to keep sharp but he won’t have to wait too much longer to be driving a Formula 1 car again.
Pre-season testing in Bahrain begins at the end of February and while Red Bull have declared that they won’t have a separate launch event to the F1 75 evening in London, it won’t be long until the Dutch driver is back in Milton Keynes working on their simulator.
Until then, Verstappen will continue his obsession with sim racing on his personal setup and speaking on Team Redline’s X account, he was asked about the biggest similarities and differences between sim racing and driving in Formula 1.
Max Verstappen says lack of G-forces the ‘biggest difference’ between sim racing and F1
Verstappen was asked what the biggest difference between sim racing and real racing was during the virtual 24 Hours of Daytona and said: “I think the biggest difference is of course the G-forces.
“So, in the real car, I mean everything, right? Accelerating, braking, cornering, that’s something that you don’t feel.
“At home, I’m driving on a static rig because it’s faster. All these kinds of motion rigs are slower.
“But of course, if you want to try and replicate a little bit what you feel in real life then you buy a motion rig.
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“Besides that, I think what is quite similar is how you work on the setup, how you work on strategy and as you see now in this race as well, it’s raining.
“You have to make the right call to be on the right tyres, it’s exactly the same as in real life.
“You’re feeling it [as well] when driving, so for me, it’s 90-95% there, but that five per cent is that real touch of strapping yourself in the car, and then the G-forces.”
How Max Verstappen won an F1 race hours after a mammoth simulator racing session
Verstappen caused controversy in 2024 during the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend when it came to his sim racing.
The 27-year-old started on pole position having won four of the first six races leading up to the event.
Aside from retiring in Australia and watching Lando Norris take his maiden F1 victory in Miami, he had been dominant, but questions were quickly raised about his readiness for the race at Imola.
Verstappen had been racing in last year’s virtual 24 Hours of Daytona during the race weekend, and one of his stints came in the middle of the night before Sunday’s race.
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The 27-year-old drove brilliantly to win from Norris in Imola but discovered just before the Grand Prix started that his sim racing team – Team Redline – were also victorious.
Helmut Marko initially banned Verstappen from sim racing during Grand Prix events but this has since been overturned.
It’ll be interesting to see how often Verstappen takes part in these events during the 2025 F1 season given how fine the margins are expected to be this year.
It’s hard to see Red Bull denying him the opportunity to continue working on his passion outside of Formula 1, especially if they want to do all they can to keep their star driver happy.
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