While Red Bull’s Max Verstappen successfully ended his actual racing season, when he claimed the F1 crown under controversial circumstances, his appearance at the weekend in a virtual 24-hour race of Le Mans did not go quite so well.
As Motorsports report, Verstappen took part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual over the weekend, a video game car race that has emerged from the pandemic and is attracting some of motorsport’s biggest names, from F1 to F2, British GT and more. The great thing about this, however, is that not every participant is a real racer; There are also many esports racers involved who can test their skills alongside and against the best in reality.
After qualifying second with Team Redline, it took Verstappen just two corners to fight his way to the top, a position you’d think one of the best drivers in the world could hold, but for so long Racing anything can happen and seven hours into the race everything went wrong for the F1 Champion.
Having just jumped back into the driver’s seat after a pause – both real and virtual Le Mans, drivers take turns in the car during the race – Verstappen “took an aggressive line over the curbs in the Ford chicane. The result was a spin and violent contact with the barriers, knocking two wheels off.”
That crash not only ended Verstappen’s day but that of his team as well, handing victory in the LMP class (Le Mans Prototypes) to Realteam Hydrogen and drivers Felipe Drugovich (a Formula 2 driver), Oliver Rowland (Formula E ) and Jeffrey Rietveld and Michal Smidl (both eSports racers).
The GTE class race was won by BMW’s official Esports racing team with drivers Rudy van Buren, Lorenzo Colombo, Enzo Bonito and Kevin Siggy. If you want to check out some highlights, they are below:
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