“90 percent accurate to a real racecar”: Max Verstappen reveals one key factor that differentiates sim racing and real racing

Tanish Chachra | 13/01/2023
"90 percent accurate to a real racecar": Max Verstappen reveals one key factor that differentiates sim racing and real racing

Max Verstappen loves to do sim racing. The Dutchman is as good at the virtual setup as in a real-life F1 car. He often competes in online tournaments and has won several. Moreover, it’s also a key part of his preparation before any Grand Prix.

He’s so addicted to it that he has paid thousands of dollars on his sim setup. And has his e-racing team. Though he admits he doesn’t have much time to do online racing anymore, he is keen on doing Le Mans for 24 hours virtually.

According to him, it’s one of the events to win, and he’s keeping all his commitments aside until the event. The gaming day will happen this weekend when he appears online for the prestigious race.

Also read: Corinna Schumacher talks about 7-time World Champion husband’s move to Ferrari

Max Verstappen tells the key difference

Verstappen admits that the sim racing every year is getting as accurate as it can be. According to him, they are 90% identical. So much so that he believes a sim racer, even though it’ll be tough, can be a real-life racecar driver. But he lists one key difference.

“You really do miss the G-force. And in real racing, a lot relies on what you feel through the wheel. I must say, though, that simulators are getting quite accurate — I would say it’s now 90 percent accurate to a real racecar,” said Verstappen to Washington Post.

While explaining this, he also remembered that the level of physicality is also a big difference. He claims that person with average physical health can be a sim racer but not an F1 driver.

Games the Dutchman loves to play apart from racing

Verstappen then was asked what games he likes to play apart from racing virtually. He responded that he was a big addict of FIFA. This is true. Verstappen had an impressive world ranking of 21 in January 2019.

According to his team boss, in 2021, Verstappen even racked up 14 hours of FIFA gaming throughout the race weekend. However, he said to the Post that nowadays, he hardly gets time to play FIFA and is mostly engaged in sim racing.

But here and there, he manages to get some time out and in that, he resorts to FIFA. He isn’t so regular anymore, but he had his glorious run in one of the highest-selling PlayStation games.

Coming this weekend, Verstappen has eyes on winning the Le Mans virtually. It needs to be enquired whether that’ll be counted in Verstappen’s pursuit for the triple crown. Probably not. Otherwise Fernando Alonso would try to arrange a sim version of Indianapolis500.

Also read: David Croft once referenced fan made video to appreciate Sebastian Vettel’s partnership with his race engineer

Post Edited By: Samriddhi Jaiswal
Max Verstappen Red Bull

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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