Max Verstappen is a man who loves motorsports and racing beyond any limit. When not racing in real life, Verstappen is busy racing in the virtual world, often live-streaming his exploits. He even takes part in professional sim racing events for Team Redline. During a recent stream alongside the rest of his team, the 3X F1 champion narrowly avoided a brutal crash as all hell broke loose in the Monza Circuit (virtually).
As seen in a video clip uploaded on X by Junaid JB#17, Team Redline was racing in Monza in an LMP2 session. Verstappen was in the middle of a crowded grid. As he maneuvered his way through traffic, a devastating crash took place ahead of him. A couple of cars even flew left and right. Hugging the wall on the right, Verstappen somehow avoided colliding with a car that rolled right over him. Debris flew all over the track as the Red Bull driver made it out of the section safely.
Dodge, duck and dive – brought to you by @Max33Verstappen in an LMP2 at Monza during the @TeamRedlineSim Not Sunday session. pic.twitter.com/cNYDfREpiE
— Junaid #JB17 (@JunaidSamodien_) March 17, 2024
An adrenaline-filled Max Verstappen exclaimed, “WOW! WHAT?!” Meanwhile, the rest of his team burst out laughing in awe at what they had seen. There was no way of explaining what had just happened during the race.
As it happens, this wasn’t Verstappen’s first near-crash situation this year. Earlier in January, he took part in the 24 Hours of Daytona with Team Redline. As reported by GP Blog, Verstappen nearly avoided crashing into his teammate in the last six hours of the race. The teammate driving ahead of Verstappen was very hard on the brakes, and Verstappen had to take avoiding actions. He ended up momentarily spinning out before regaining control of the race and winning with ease.
Max Verstappen went sim racing in Saudi Arabia, hours before the feature race
After Verstappen won the Saudi Arabian GP with ease, PlanetF1 reported Verstappen was up till 4 am before the feature race. However, that wasn’t enough for the Dutchman. After he woke up, Verstappen revealed he had an hour to spare. Hence, he logged into his Xbox and began sim racing with his friends again. He referred to the session as a bit of “unwinding.” Playing via his controller, Verstappen claimed he did it just for fun.
max talking about his late night twitch/iracing shenanigans. hes racing to “unwind” on an xbox controller and logged on with an hour to spare true obsession pic.twitter.com/8EugcY35Hg
— nini (@SCUDERIAFEMBOY) March 9, 2024
Notably, Verstappen’s late-night exploits aren’t an irresponsible move. He claimed that he wants to be in sync with the European schedule and sleeps accordingly. Furthermore, the sim racing world allows Verstappen to be close to the people he calls friends. It also allows him to take his focus away from F1 and not let nerves get the better of him.
