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In 10 years' time, Max will be the first driver to be completely physically and biologically integrated with a race car, announcing the dawn of cyborgs in motorsport racing.
*From the moment I understood the weakness of my legs, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of wheel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine. Your kind cling to your legs, as though they will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call the body will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the car is immortal… Even in death I serve the Omnissiah.*
Maximus Verstappen, M41.
Yep, his mother was a karting champion too
Edit: both Kimi and Button have raced against his mother, father and Max.
Here’s some [footage](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/t9oznz/for_the_day_thats_in_it_here_is_sophie_kumpen/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) of his mother karting
Her father was a Belgian rallycross champion too. And her brother is a multiple winner of the 24h of Zolder race. He comes from very good driver backgrounds on both parents’ sides.
Unfortunately Mick doesnt have his father here to coach him at arguably the most pivotal point in his development. Honestly its heart breaking, if Michael was still here I have no doubt Mick wouldn't have lost his seat
>if Michael was still here I have no doubt Mick wouldn't have lost his seat
I genuinely feel like Michael would have been heavily involved in a team by now, or possibly even an owner. Sauber would have been a perfect fit at the right time, imo.
Keep fighting, Michael ❤️
I agree, and Mick having Michael in his corner giving him advice on what to do and what not to do and how to handle the pressure etc etc would have given Mick a much better chance. Overall I just feel very sad he isn't here to see his son race and just as sad that Mick doesn't have his father watching him either. Tragic
If love to see the difference in mick with his driving and all that if his dad was still around to help.
I mean Micheal was a once in a generation I think abit like Lewis and now max looking at it.
But mick certainly isn't his dad even if he had him around to coach him
It's hard to say. I'm doubtful Mick would have been as good as his father as like you say Michael was one of the greatest of all time, some might say the greatest. But Mick would likely be in another league IMO if Michael was around. Mick hasn't had his dad coaching him since the age of like 13, having him coaching him from 13 till now and having the advantage while in an F1 seat of having one of the greatest as your coach I think would make a huge difference.
Obviously this is all speculation on my part but subjectively this is how I feel. And overall outside of performance it's just incredibly sad they both are missing out on being apart of each other's lives in such a wonderfully connected way as to both be high level race car drivers. And in general, obviously.
I don’t think you are wrong. The doc about Michael you could just see how much it hurt mick saying he couldn’t talk to his dad about racing in f1. Missing him through his junior career definitely didn’t help his development.
I think he would have went to Alfa Romeo in 2021 instead though. Makes more sense for Michael to push Mick there since it's been way more stable given that Giovinazzi was allowed to stay there for so long.
Jos’ career was a string of bad fortune. After Benetton he only drove for backmarkers, and a big chance in his career at Honda was struck down due to chief designer Postlethwaite suddenly passing away.
And mind you, that was the best the Netherlands had to offer in F1, until 2015 when his son made his debut.
Bad fortune and managment. He got Vandoorne'd at Bennetton (And was still Michael's strongest teammate that year!) and after that, as you say, only backmarkers, which he occasionally dragged into the points (Which was only top 6 when he raced)
I'm fairly certain if he'd gotten a seat in a mid-table team, he'd be able to get another podium or two to his name. But I don't think he was good enough for a true top team ever.
Father who was in the sport but didn't do much? Check
Father has a connection with one of the legends of the sport? Check. (Haaland with Keane and Jo's with Schumi)
The script writers really need to innovate.
For those than aren’t familiar with iRacing, SOF is Strength of Field. At this level, you’re going against pro sim-racers and irl pro drivers.
You’ll notice in this race Alex Palou is P2!
He and Alex teamed up last year for the BMW Sim Cup in iRacing at Spa. Max had an absolutely insane run from the back of the field because they didn’t qualify. I’m pretty sure you can find information on this on YouTube, but essentially Max had stint 1 and started at the back and was able to make up 42 overtakes across his 1 hour stint to put them in P12 by the pit stop/driver change. Alex got in and took them to a finish of P7.
Edit: Here’s the race.
https://www.youtube.com/live/y9_AMb5bb4c?feature=share
Earlier that same year or possibly in 2021, Max set the single season iRacing lap record at Bathurst while qualifying for the Bathurst 12H. I believe he beat the next fastest drivers by around 3/10ths, which is huge at that level.
Max races GT3s in IMSA so he is the... backmarker against LMP2s and the BMW LMDh!
Though the BMWs are probably the car most likely to take out an innocent in the whole game.
Top one is safety rating, things like crashes, contact & off track loses you safety rating. Racing without incident gains you safety rating. Higher safety rating lets you race in more different series/races.
Bottom one is irating, winning/finishing high means gaining irating, stronger competition gets you more of it. At 4k you're in the top few %, at 8.8k you're amongst the best few.
And what he's doing here is grinding out some iRating to guarantee that he's in the top split for the virtual 12 Hours of Sebring event this weekend, plus getting in some good practice along the way.
> At this level, you’re going against pro sim-racers and irl pro drivers.
I thought people already knew that he is one of the top sim-racers out there. His Bathurst Qualifying laps a few years ago is legendary. 0.45 seconds ahead of the 2nd place and this of course is split 1.
This one. Seriously one of the most impressive laps I've ever seen, real or sim. Just inch perfect in every corner. 0.45 seconds ahead of literally the best sim racers in the game is insane. At night.
For those who haven't seen it yet: https://youtu.be/QaD-H8loNpg
Well, everybody drove at night since its the starting time of the real race simulated. Ive driven multiple Bathurst 12h races myself (and the Bathurst 1000) in iRacing and that track is tough. now i consider myself lucky that im able to be consistent on that track but i can tell you from experience that many drivers struggle with this track. especially on the mountain there are some corners that make your car so incredibly unstable. many drivers in the teams ive been in do not drive the bathurst 12h because they admit they wouldnt last. and part of it is because its pretty much half a street circuit where the walls are the track limits and iracing has a really good damage model so one wrong touch with the wall and you might end up with significant damage. iracing also doesnt have that many street circuits.
Weirdest thing to me is that he was also ranked 40 or something in fucking FIFA, globally. Like, some people make careers out of that, how does he find the time?
Damn, what a world we live in. The F1 and Indy champs just casually racing against the best simracers in the world. I wonder if Max will become a pro simracer after he retires.
He is easily the best of the world in some classes. The performance of pro drivers shows their experience transfers really well into the sims. Props to iracing I guess.
Every session I've joined with Piastri, he's dominated. I have a picture somewhere of me just ahead of Rubens Barrichello in a Ferrari GT3 practice lol, but he's older. This off-season Fernando was winning a lot of formula vee races, funny enough.
Remember the job of a modern F1 driver involves a ton of sim work for the team, and they basically use the iracing/rfactor model. Everyone on the grid is pretty much also a pro sim racer as part of their actual job.
Even simracing is expensive to get into. Most people working 9-5s don't have a few grand to throw at gaming PC, seat rig, steering wheel, iracer maps, etc. Closest I got to it was Gran Turismo on Playstation.
He would've won 24 hour Le Mans virtual at least twice if they didn't have bullshit tech issues.
I was watching the stream live when it happened, he was leading and then had netcode glitches which caused him to get hit:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12bUGwOX9yw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12bUGwOX9yw)
His team was leading again in 2023, and he got kicked out during a driver swap and lost like 2 laps which it's impossible to recover from and the stewards didn't restore his laps:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc7aLrnWbnw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc7aLrnWbnw)
He's pretty passionate about his sim racing team and he shows up to their events to promote them and support them even when he's at a GP weekend or on rest.
His favorite sim is iRacing for that reason. You can just drop in and aside from occasional netcode issues, the servers are quite stable and the results are usually indicative of the better driver.
In both cases, the fact that they are using a machine (a jet or an F1 car) makes the real thing very easy to emulate (relatively speaking).
I guess it's a bit surprising because our idea of computer games is something like FIFA, that may be more or less accurate but can never replace in any way playing real soccer. But driving a car, or a jet, when you think about it, is just sitting somewhere pressing buttons and moving devices - you just need to send the output of all these things to a simulator rather than a real vehicle, put a screen in front and the only front where you have to work is making the simulation's physics and mechanics as close to real life as possible.
Max would qualify as an almost full time pro-sim driver. He's inside the top 100 best drivers of the world, you don't get to almost 9k of iRating without a **massive** grind.
The guy is always on iRacing the same day he races IRL, the next day at most, that should tell you how much time he spends on iRacing.
Lando has fun on sims while also being competitive, Max competes in them. Also Max doens't race alone, he races with Team Redline, of which Alex Palou is also a part of, and that means the team helps him with setups and such, which are a massive thing on iRacing.
Uh, isn't he basically a full time Team Redline driver? Aside from F1 work, he seems to partake in all other possible events, practices and general work.
Interviews with him also seem to show he's treating it equal to his F1 career, even during his first F1 WDC season.
He’ll race until he physically cant. After f1 will be endurance racing for the next 30-40 years of his life. I expect him to be buried in a racing seat.
Legends like Alonso and Kanaan spend a ton of time in public lobbies as well. It’s so cool that, if your matchmaking score is high enough, you can legitimately compete against your heroes and some of the best drivers on the planet, in equal equipment.
His name on the service has two spaces between his first and last name. I think it’s an intentional reference to “all the time you have to leave the space”.
He does a lot of top split Formula Vee and USF2000, but it looks like he hasn’t raced since December 31.
https://i.imgur.com/j0d2dVn.jpg
[irating distribution chart last year](https://www.reddit.com/r/iRacing/comments/sulys4/more_people_should_see_this_irating_distribution/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
[How Max went through the ranks in 20 days](https://www.reddit.com/r/iRacing/comments/st7ly9/did_max_verstappen_go_on_the_most_intense_irating/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
Whats absolutely wild about that seocnd post is, the day before he flew to the Monza Race weekend in 2019, he did 15 races on iRacing, He then did 1 race on the sim on the SAME DAY as the Monza F1 Race and then 14 races the day after. Thats is just an insane passion for racing. I love it.
He was already at or near that skill level, it's just his ranking didn't reflect it. It's like Magnus Carlsen getting a new chess.com account and getting to the top ranking in "just 1 month". It still took years to get to that skill level, just not online like other online only players might have.
That's the best analogy I've read so far lol.
Max Verstappen creating a twitch account where he streams himself grinding through the ranks.
"0 to 8000+ ELO in ONE MONTH. Can I do it!?!?!?"
Alonso raced in WEC along his Formula 1 duties. So did Hülkenberg. Driving top race cars around permanent or semi permanent tracks is not very dangerous, Kubica's crash was another beast entirely and, even then, he was terribly unlucky.
The problem with motorsports is that there could be 20 Max Verstappens out there right now but we'd never find out because the barrier of entry is too damn expensive.
But the question wasn’t talent; it’s was about current level. People who never found out probably haven’t trained enough to be as good, although they might have more talent.
Honest answer. You really can't compare F1 drivers with rally drivers, or motogp drivers, or just daily commuters for that matter. There's no way you can say any driver is the best in the world.. Just too many differences that can't be compared.
This is also a multi-class race so there are two other faster prototype classes racing alongside him. Truly a feat to go 10/10 with all the traffic and bumps at Sebring. Legend.
Reminds me a bit of Magnus Carlsen being both reigning champion in classical, rapid and blitz chess, the first person ever to hold all three titles simultaneously; and also ranked number 1 of seven million in ESPN fantasy football.
I really wanna see Lando, George, Charles and Alex race Max in Mario Kart. I'm sure many laughs would be had.
It would probably be more entertaining than some of the current races on the F1 schedule.
- Theres below average racers
- Then theres average racers …. (where you spend most of your time if youre good and new)
- Then theres good racers …. (Where when you finally sweat and put time into the sim and you throw your best low fueled insane lap youve ever done youre still 1-2 seconds behind them)
- Then theres Pub stompers, where theyre talented and live on the game …. (Most likely wont play in these lobbies unless you have some sort of talent and grind almost full time)
- Then theres Semi-Pros
- Pros
- Max Verstappen
The dude is a machine, and it scares me.
I'm a hamilton fan through and through, but I think Max's obsession with driving sim nonstop may make him impossible to beat irl unless someone just has a straight up better car than him.
People can think sim driving doesn't equal to track driving, but it absolutely does and we know that the reason a lot of these younger guys are so talented is because they've been sim driving since before they got a license.
That's a pretty huge time commitment too! Those are 45 minute races, 10 of them is 7.5 hours of race time. Not accounting for qualifying and practice.
Meanwhile I'm lucky to squeak in one 45 minute race in a week.
Funnily enough, on [yesterday's Beyond The Grid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3-CFke9gY) with Paul Stoddart, Paul mentioned having access to one of F1's first proper simulation rigs in 2003, when Jos was driving for him at Minardi.
Jos and a then-6 year old Max both had a shot, and naturally Max was setting faster times. The guy was born to race!
Can I ask a stupid question, are all these cars equal? If so does this not reinforce the fact he's a machine? Or are they all driving mclarens behind him?
They are not equal. Like real-life GT racing, there is Balance of Performance which attempts to make the cars perform roughly equally. However, the community consensus seems to be that the Ferrari is the best car for Sebring this week.
Also, you can set up the car yourself, so his car's setup might be fundamentally faster than the other competitors' setups, even if they are using the same car.
However, everyone has the same opportunity to pick the fastest car and develop a setup, so it's a bit like a real-life spec series.
Why'd I log off? It's cool as hell! I've been in races with Alonso, Norris and Barrichello - sure, I had no chance of ever beating them, but it was cool racing them!
Even cooler that people on iRacing are super respectful of these pros. No one is harassing or trolling these guys, they can just race using their real names and everyone enjoys it
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In 10 years' time, Max will be the first driver to be completely physically and biologically integrated with a race car, announcing the dawn of cyborgs in motorsport racing.
Max Emilian Verstappen, one of the first of the Adeptus Mechanicus
Verstappen is a psyker that uses perfect timing to drive as fast as possible
*From the moment I understood the weakness of my legs, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of wheel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine. Your kind cling to your legs, as though they will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call the body will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the car is immortal… Even in death I serve the Omnissiah.* Maximus Verstappen, M41.
Brilliant. Or should I say, simply lovely
What you should actually be saying is "praise the omnissiah" , but ok
Max WDC for the next 10k years.
He will make Cyberpunk 2077 look like kindergarten
Leaked plot of the Cars prequel
This is the Cars prequel I want.
_\*Machine Head's theme starts playing*_
Max Verstappen was genetically engineered to be a racing driver. Probably.
Yep, his mother was a karting champion too Edit: both Kimi and Button have raced against his mother, father and Max. Here’s some [footage](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/t9oznz/for_the_day_thats_in_it_here_is_sophie_kumpen/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) of his mother karting
Her father was a Belgian rallycross champion too. And her brother is a multiple winner of the 24h of Zolder race. He comes from very good driver backgrounds on both parents’ sides.
Hold up, Kumpen the FIA GT driver is Max's Grandad? EDIT: Cousin!
Winning an F1 race wasn’t in this father’s blood lol
The second version is always better than the first. Cleaned up all the defects Jos had and *bam* double world champion.
Mick Schumacher would like a word with you.
Unfortunately Mick doesnt have his father here to coach him at arguably the most pivotal point in his development. Honestly its heart breaking, if Michael was still here I have no doubt Mick wouldn't have lost his seat
>if Michael was still here I have no doubt Mick wouldn't have lost his seat I genuinely feel like Michael would have been heavily involved in a team by now, or possibly even an owner. Sauber would have been a perfect fit at the right time, imo. Keep fighting, Michael ❤️
I agree, and Mick having Michael in his corner giving him advice on what to do and what not to do and how to handle the pressure etc etc would have given Mick a much better chance. Overall I just feel very sad he isn't here to see his son race and just as sad that Mick doesn't have his father watching him either. Tragic
I wanna imagine that he'd be as deep into current era Mercedes as Niki was, or yeah Sauber would have worked too.
If love to see the difference in mick with his driving and all that if his dad was still around to help. I mean Micheal was a once in a generation I think abit like Lewis and now max looking at it. But mick certainly isn't his dad even if he had him around to coach him
It's hard to say. I'm doubtful Mick would have been as good as his father as like you say Michael was one of the greatest of all time, some might say the greatest. But Mick would likely be in another league IMO if Michael was around. Mick hasn't had his dad coaching him since the age of like 13, having him coaching him from 13 till now and having the advantage while in an F1 seat of having one of the greatest as your coach I think would make a huge difference. Obviously this is all speculation on my part but subjectively this is how I feel. And overall outside of performance it's just incredibly sad they both are missing out on being apart of each other's lives in such a wonderfully connected way as to both be high level race car drivers. And in general, obviously.
I don’t think you are wrong. The doc about Michael you could just see how much it hurt mick saying he couldn’t talk to his dad about racing in f1. Missing him through his junior career definitely didn’t help his development.
I think he would have went to Alfa Romeo in 2021 instead though. Makes more sense for Michael to push Mick there since it's been way more stable given that Giovinazzi was allowed to stay there for so long.
Michael didn't have any defects though. Literally no room for improvement.
Maybe he could have worked on his temperament a little. Cost him once or twice, but yes he was 99% of the complete package
Agreed, but his desire to win at all costs made him so good. That 97 disqualification crashed my child heart... Haha!
Some said: failure is the mother (or father in this case) of success.
Jos’ career was a string of bad fortune. After Benetton he only drove for backmarkers, and a big chance in his career at Honda was struck down due to chief designer Postlethwaite suddenly passing away. And mind you, that was the best the Netherlands had to offer in F1, until 2015 when his son made his debut.
Bad fortune and managment. He got Vandoorne'd at Bennetton (And was still Michael's strongest teammate that year!) and after that, as you say, only backmarkers, which he occasionally dragged into the points (Which was only top 6 when he raced) I'm fairly certain if he'd gotten a seat in a mid-table team, he'd be able to get another podium or two to his name. But I don't think he was good enough for a true top team ever.
His mother probably obliterated button and horner at karting, he has such a chad mother 🗿
He was indeed manufactured in the same factory as Haaland
Father who was in the sport but didn't do much? Check Father has a connection with one of the legends of the sport? Check. (Haaland with Keane and Jo's with Schumi) The script writers really need to innovate.
Haaland with Keane is a bit of a stretch yes? The connection is more with Ole Gunnar Solskjær.
For those than aren’t familiar with iRacing, SOF is Strength of Field. At this level, you’re going against pro sim-racers and irl pro drivers. You’ll notice in this race Alex Palou is P2!
He and Alex teamed up last year for the BMW Sim Cup in iRacing at Spa. Max had an absolutely insane run from the back of the field because they didn’t qualify. I’m pretty sure you can find information on this on YouTube, but essentially Max had stint 1 and started at the back and was able to make up 42 overtakes across his 1 hour stint to put them in P12 by the pit stop/driver change. Alex got in and took them to a finish of P7. Edit: Here’s the race. https://www.youtube.com/live/y9_AMb5bb4c?feature=share
Jesus. 42 overtakes? He’s just a machine.
Earlier that same year or possibly in 2021, Max set the single season iRacing lap record at Bathurst while qualifying for the Bathurst 12H. I believe he beat the next fastest drivers by around 3/10ths, which is huge at that level.
You mean that [one night time qualification run](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaD-H8loNpg)?
He's insane, most RL drivers fall somewhat short of the E-sport pros, but not Max.
Interesting post! Thanks for sharing. What are the license numbers? And what does the + 0.1 mean in context for Verstappen?
Safety Rating. You need to drive save in all classes to get a high safety rating. Max gained 0.1. He is already on the highest class.
Not a whole lot to crash into when you’re 20 sec clear of everyone
Passing backmarkers is unironically one of the most dangerous activities in iRacing
It is in real life racing as well.
Max races GT3s in IMSA so he is the... backmarker against LMP2s and the BMW LMDh! Though the BMWs are probably the car most likely to take out an innocent in the whole game.
You still have to pass the backmarkers, that's a whole challenge in and of itself.
Ocon flashbacks
Ocon would like a word
This was a multi class race, and he would have had to deal with two classes of prototypes.
Top one is safety rating, things like crashes, contact & off track loses you safety rating. Racing without incident gains you safety rating. Higher safety rating lets you race in more different series/races. Bottom one is irating, winning/finishing high means gaining irating, stronger competition gets you more of it. At 4k you're in the top few %, at 8.8k you're amongst the best few.
And what he's doing here is grinding out some iRating to guarantee that he's in the top split for the virtual 12 Hours of Sebring event this weekend, plus getting in some good practice along the way.
It means he very slightly increased his safety rating
I bet he was mad he couldn’t win on Sunday, so he was getting his revenge on Monday
Lose on Sunday, get even on Monday. That's how he rolls.
> At this level, you’re going against pro sim-racers and irl pro drivers. I thought people already knew that he is one of the top sim-racers out there. His Bathurst Qualifying laps a few years ago is legendary. 0.45 seconds ahead of the 2nd place and this of course is split 1.
This one. Seriously one of the most impressive laps I've ever seen, real or sim. Just inch perfect in every corner. 0.45 seconds ahead of literally the best sim racers in the game is insane. At night. For those who haven't seen it yet: https://youtu.be/QaD-H8loNpg
Well, everybody drove at night since its the starting time of the real race simulated. Ive driven multiple Bathurst 12h races myself (and the Bathurst 1000) in iRacing and that track is tough. now i consider myself lucky that im able to be consistent on that track but i can tell you from experience that many drivers struggle with this track. especially on the mountain there are some corners that make your car so incredibly unstable. many drivers in the teams ive been in do not drive the bathurst 12h because they admit they wouldnt last. and part of it is because its pretty much half a street circuit where the walls are the track limits and iracing has a really good damage model so one wrong touch with the wall and you might end up with significant damage. iracing also doesnt have that many street circuits.
Just watched and first sector I was thinking what’s all the fuss about. Then he went over Skyline and I’m like, oh, yeah. I get it now. That was nuts.
Jeddah21 but finished
Weirdest thing to me is that he was also ranked 40 or something in fucking FIFA, globally. Like, some people make careers out of that, how does he find the time?
>At this level, you’re going against pro sim-racers and irl pro drivers. And 2-time (and current) F1 World Champions.
Alex palou is also insanely good will win a lot of championships in Indycar I say 4-6 titles
Verstappen vs Palou
To heck with those guys. Let’s get Ole in a car!
We have seen what happens when Ole's at the wheel and it's not pretty.
Tbh Ole had to crawl so Eth could run. It was pretty until it wasn’t.
Damn, what a world we live in. The F1 and Indy champs just casually racing against the best simracers in the world. I wonder if Max will become a pro simracer after he retires.
Man is already a pro simracer, he just treats it as a hobby
He is easily the best of the world in some classes. The performance of pro drivers shows their experience transfers really well into the sims. Props to iracing I guess.
Yeah it shows how good the sims are now that the top tier pro drivers in real life can beat the fastest dedicated sim racers.
To be fair Max does put a lot of time into simracing right? It's not like anyone else on the f1 grid can join these lobbies and dominate them?
Every session I've joined with Piastri, he's dominated. I have a picture somewhere of me just ahead of Rubens Barrichello in a Ferrari GT3 practice lol, but he's older. This off-season Fernando was winning a lot of formula vee races, funny enough.
Everyone I know got to race against Fernando in the Vees… I kept missing him by one session!
Didn't Jacques Villeneuve also join some pro sim race on his craptop with a controller and still finish in the top half of the field or something?
He did, and JV kept his car mostly clean and incident free throughout the race too
"so Rubens, you narrowly lost to ChineseCumTorture there, how do you think your race went overall?"
The likes of Russell and leclerc have destroyed before
[удалено]
But lobbies at this level? I don't mean some average Joe lobby
Yep, see the lockdown races where esports players were regularly invited
Oh that's pretty cool then!
Remember the job of a modern F1 driver involves a ton of sim work for the team, and they basically use the iracing/rfactor model. Everyone on the grid is pretty much also a pro sim racer as part of their actual job.
Don't they just use rFactor 2 Pro for the graphics engine but all of the physics models are developed in house?
Yes.
The sim racers are usually people who didn't have enough luck/money to get into IRL racing
Even simracing is expensive to get into. Most people working 9-5s don't have a few grand to throw at gaming PC, seat rig, steering wheel, iracer maps, etc. Closest I got to it was Gran Turismo on Playstation.
He would've won 24 hour Le Mans virtual at least twice if they didn't have bullshit tech issues. I was watching the stream live when it happened, he was leading and then had netcode glitches which caused him to get hit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12bUGwOX9yw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12bUGwOX9yw) His team was leading again in 2023, and he got kicked out during a driver swap and lost like 2 laps which it's impossible to recover from and the stewards didn't restore his laps: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc7aLrnWbnw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc7aLrnWbnw) He's pretty passionate about his sim racing team and he shows up to their events to promote them and support them even when he's at a GP weekend or on rest. His favorite sim is iRacing for that reason. You can just drop in and aside from occasional netcode issues, the servers are quite stable and the results are usually indicative of the better driver.
Mhm. You also see this in combat flight simulators - _actual_ fighter pilots absolutely murk "professional Sim" pilots in dog fights
Been a while since I’ve seen someone use ‘murk’ in a sentence
In both cases, the fact that they are using a machine (a jet or an F1 car) makes the real thing very easy to emulate (relatively speaking). I guess it's a bit surprising because our idea of computer games is something like FIFA, that may be more or less accurate but can never replace in any way playing real soccer. But driving a car, or a jet, when you think about it, is just sitting somewhere pressing buttons and moving devices - you just need to send the output of all these things to a simulator rather than a real vehicle, put a screen in front and the only front where you have to work is making the simulation's physics and mechanics as close to real life as possible.
Then there’s Jimmy Johnson Poor guy wrecked every lap in the NASCAR invitational
Imagine playing this game fulltime over 40 hours a week and some random Dutch kid just hops in and laps you
"random Dutch kid" could mean either Max or Jarno Opmeer
Max would qualify as an almost full time pro-sim driver. He's inside the top 100 best drivers of the world, you don't get to almost 9k of iRating without a **massive** grind. The guy is always on iRacing the same day he races IRL, the next day at most, that should tell you how much time he spends on iRacing. Lando has fun on sims while also being competitive, Max competes in them. Also Max doens't race alone, he races with Team Redline, of which Alex Palou is also a part of, and that means the team helps him with setups and such, which are a massive thing on iRacing.
Basically the one punch man of racing.
It’s more like a hobby for him, so obviously he doesn’t need to do it if he doesn’t want.
He is very honest about sim racing saying there are people out there than him.
Uh, isn't he basically a full time Team Redline driver? Aside from F1 work, he seems to partake in all other possible events, practices and general work. Interviews with him also seem to show he's treating it equal to his F1 career, even during his first F1 WDC season.
He’ll race until he physically cant. After f1 will be endurance racing for the next 30-40 years of his life. I expect him to be buried in a racing seat.
Real Sainz Sr vibes. Max to be bombing thru the dakar in 30 years
Legends like Alonso and Kanaan spend a ton of time in public lobbies as well. It’s so cool that, if your matchmaking score is high enough, you can legitimately compete against your heroes and some of the best drivers on the planet, in equal equipment.
Alonso? Really? Link?
His name on the service has two spaces between his first and last name. I think it’s an intentional reference to “all the time you have to leave the space”. He does a lot of top split Formula Vee and USF2000, but it looks like he hasn’t raced since December 31. https://i.imgur.com/j0d2dVn.jpg
No link but you often see some people post about it when they find him in the iracing subreddit. Last post I saw he was racing the MX5s lol
He owns proracing team, so yeah, he's in business deep.
Max is one of these people that are farmers and work 12 hours a day just to go home and play Farming Simulator.
Also, deliver a cargo load across Europe in a truck and then go home for some Euro Truck Simulator to relax
[irating distribution chart last year](https://www.reddit.com/r/iRacing/comments/sulys4/more_people_should_see_this_irating_distribution/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) [How Max went through the ranks in 20 days](https://www.reddit.com/r/iRacing/comments/st7ly9/did_max_verstappen_go_on_the_most_intense_irating/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
Whats absolutely wild about that seocnd post is, the day before he flew to the Monza Race weekend in 2019, he did 15 races on iRacing, He then did 1 race on the sim on the SAME DAY as the Monza F1 Race and then 14 races the day after. Thats is just an insane passion for racing. I love it.
This man have a freaking simrig in his suitcase?!
Like Ironman with the briefcase suit, only it unfolds to a sim racing rig
Max gets paid $55mil a year, mans can afford to bring whatever he wants.
The 2nd post is absolutely absurd. It takes elite sim racers years to do what max did in a few months.
Almost as if he was like really good at racing cars or something
He was already at or near that skill level, it's just his ranking didn't reflect it. It's like Magnus Carlsen getting a new chess.com account and getting to the top ranking in "just 1 month". It still took years to get to that skill level, just not online like other online only players might have.
That's the best analogy I've read so far lol. Max Verstappen creating a twitch account where he streams himself grinding through the ranks. "0 to 8000+ ELO in ONE MONTH. Can I do it!?!?!?"
This is just bizarre
We all have proof that his F1 gig exist to fund his iRacing subscription.
Alex Palou is an INDY racer, yes?
Yeah. Indycar champion in his 2nd season in 2021.
Yes and he's part of the same simrace team as Max, Team Redline.
Yes, and a very good one.
Max apparently doesn't need oxygen to live, he needs racing.
Hey what do you do for work, oh I race cars competitively. Hey what do you do for fun, oh I race cars competitively.
Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life
True. Kids a race car driver
What a monster
More of a cyborg, when you think of it
im truly convinced, that max is just the best driver in the world right now, in any motorsport...
I'd love to see him in actual GT3's sometime, Bathurst always takes place before the F1 season starts
As long as he's in f1, it won't happen. Not after Kubica and that one rally in 2011
Probably not but racing GT3s is nowhere near as dangerous as rallying. It's safer than F1 even.
Alonso raced in WEC along his Formula 1 duties. So did Hülkenberg. Driving top race cars around permanent or semi permanent tracks is not very dangerous, Kubica's crash was another beast entirely and, even then, he was terribly unlucky.
My man got irritated with P2 so much that he chose violence in iracing lobbies. Not a good monday to join the servers, I guess.
I guess that's one way to beat Seb's 9 win in a row streak
At least a Ferrari won something
12h is this weekend. Probably one of the few events he can enter this year.
Real question. Is Max the best current driver in the world period?
Yes
I have never crashed. He has loads of times. Do the math.
I see the error in my ways, now I nominate u/Oscarpiastri2027 as the true indisputable goat 🐐
The problem with motorsports is that there could be 20 Max Verstappens out there right now but we'd never find out because the barrier of entry is too damn expensive.
Ok, then let me rephrase. Is Max Verstappen the best current pro driver in the world?
But the question wasn’t talent; it’s was about current level. People who never found out probably haven’t trained enough to be as good, although they might have more talent.
Honest answer. You really can't compare F1 drivers with rally drivers, or motogp drivers, or just daily commuters for that matter. There's no way you can say any driver is the best in the world.. Just too many differences that can't be compared.
Not just an honest answer, but the most correct one as well.
Two champions, Verstappen and Palou:)
This is also a multi-class race so there are two other faster prototype classes racing alongside him. Truly a feat to go 10/10 with all the traffic and bumps at Sebring. Legend.
I wonder if he would be as dominant in other less realistic racing platforms... like Mario Kart...
iirc he was 20th in the fifa world rankings - he’s a machine
Reminds me a bit of Magnus Carlsen being both reigning champion in classical, rapid and blitz chess, the first person ever to hold all three titles simultaneously; and also ranked number 1 of seven million in ESPN fantasy football.
dude seems to take everything very seriously, give him time to understand Mario kart and we may have a goat.
I want to see him do Rocket League now
I really wanna see Lando, George, Charles and Alex race Max in Mario Kart. I'm sure many laughs would be had. It would probably be more entertaining than some of the current races on the F1 schedule.
Max :Charles you won't believe what I just did! I won 10 fucking rcaes in a Ferrari!
Have raced against him and a handful of others on iRacing. Max is in a complete league of his own, he's insane.
- Theres below average racers - Then theres average racers …. (where you spend most of your time if youre good and new) - Then theres good racers …. (Where when you finally sweat and put time into the sim and you throw your best low fueled insane lap youve ever done youre still 1-2 seconds behind them) - Then theres Pub stompers, where theyre talented and live on the game …. (Most likely wont play in these lobbies unless you have some sort of talent and grind almost full time) - Then theres Semi-Pros - Pros - Max Verstappen
Max probably feels about F1 the same we do about our jobs. "Ah ffs, I gotta go do that in order to pay for food, housing and hobbies".
"Goddammit, guess I gotta go drive those race cars so I can enjoy my hobby of driving simulated race cars"
Just imagine Max at a time when testing wasn't regulated. They would have to pry him out of the car with a crowbar.
The dude is a machine, and it scares me. I'm a hamilton fan through and through, but I think Max's obsession with driving sim nonstop may make him impossible to beat irl unless someone just has a straight up better car than him. People can think sim driving doesn't equal to track driving, but it absolutely does and we know that the reason a lot of these younger guys are so talented is because they've been sim driving since before they got a license.
The reason Max is going so anal on sim racing is because he found out that it will make him an even better RL racer.
Anakin shit right here
More wins with Ferrari than Sharl!
Holy crap, he's insatiable.
Man's a beast. Also the only time he's getting in a Ferrari. ;)
He owns a Monza SP2.
Also got a sf90 a month back!
I can't tell if that car is pretty or ugly
The dude just loves racing
Was he injected with a racing super-serum at that gas station Jos left him at? Guy is bloody unstoppable
What do you think Red Bull is?
Dear lord, they give Max a daily Red Bull IV drip
You’ve got it the wrong way around. Red Bull is just Max’s blood watered down.
He should drive in a WEC event or IMSA
That's a pretty huge time commitment too! Those are 45 minute races, 10 of them is 7.5 hours of race time. Not accounting for qualifying and practice. Meanwhile I'm lucky to squeak in one 45 minute race in a week.
Alex Palou punching the air RN
Funnily enough, on [yesterday's Beyond The Grid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3-CFke9gY) with Paul Stoddart, Paul mentioned having access to one of F1's first proper simulation rigs in 2003, when Jos was driving for him at Minardi. Jos and a then-6 year old Max both had a shot, and naturally Max was setting faster times. The guy was born to race!
Max in a Red Bull: Wins. Max in a Ferrari: Wins. Charles Leclerc: Pain.
Max Verstappen, pro sim racing player who occasionally races in Formula 1 every other weekend.
this is kind of like playing to a sold out show at Madison Square Garden with your band, then running home to play Guitar Hero
He’s so passionate!
I hope one day he goes for the triple crown. I feel like if anyone can do it, It will be him
Guy is a mad man
Can I ask a stupid question, are all these cars equal? If so does this not reinforce the fact he's a machine? Or are they all driving mclarens behind him?
They are not equal. Like real-life GT racing, there is Balance of Performance which attempts to make the cars perform roughly equally. However, the community consensus seems to be that the Ferrari is the best car for Sebring this week. Also, you can set up the car yourself, so his car's setup might be fundamentally faster than the other competitors' setups, even if they are using the same car. However, everyone has the same opportunity to pick the fastest car and develop a setup, so it's a bit like a real-life spec series.
Cars are balanced yes
I think he likes racing.
Lol the only Ferrari won of the year was by a red bull driver.
Imagine jumping on to do some racing and Maxx is in the lobby....just log off lol
Why'd I log off? It's cool as hell! I've been in races with Alonso, Norris and Barrichello - sure, I had no chance of ever beating them, but it was cool racing them! Even cooler that people on iRacing are super respectful of these pros. No one is harassing or trolling these guys, they can just race using their real names and everyone enjoys it
I can honestly see him racing different series over the years as he might soon be bored with F1.
Does this man even REST?
When you're so good it's boring.