3-Time F1 World Champion Max Verstappen Is an Elite Esports Player

Max Verstappen is possibly one of the finest drivers on the F1 grid, as he is a three-time and the reigning world champion. He is also an avid video games fan, who even dabbled in the livestreaming scene when the F1 season was on hold during the worldwide pandemic. Although F1 does have a long history with gaming, Verstappen stands out because of his sheer skill.

The Red Bull driver doesn’t only play video games for fun but also aims to be one of the best at it. Electronic Arts’ soccer simulation series, FIFA (now called EA FC), is one of his favorite video games. The Milton Keynes-based F1 team once reported their ace driver spent 14 hours playing FIFA during a Grand Prix weekend. Moreover, he was also among the top 50 players in the world at one point in time.

According to Futwiz, the three-time F1 world champion ranked 21st in FIFA 19 Ultimate Team in January 2019. He also ranked 31 in the previous installment of the game in August 2018. However, there is no data available about his achievements in the latest EA FC 24. The last recorded data of crgboy007 (Verstappen’s in-game name) was in FIFA 20, where he ranked 2537 in June 2020.

Max Verstappen is also an elite sim racer

The 26-year-old F1 driver is not only a dominant force on the real-life grid but also in the virtual world. Aside from FIFA, Verstappen is also elite at playing sim racing games. It is not surprising for an F1 driver to play sim racing, as a lot of them claim it helps them hone their skills and stay on top of their game. Moreover, many drivers, including Verstappen, have streamed sim racing in the past.

Although there are drivers like the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who don’t like sim racing, that is not the case with Max Verstappen, who is a top-level sim racer. According to EsportsEarnings, the Red Bull driver currently ranks 242 in the Netherlands. He is also part of the professional sim racing team, Team Redline.

Verstappen last participated in Le Mans Virtual Series 2022/23 – LMP Series, where he and his sim racing team finished second, losing to Porsche Coanda. Team Redline bagged $12,500 at the tournament, and Max took home $2,500. Moreover, Max Verstappen has also shown off his sim racing skills in Red Bull’s OracleVirtual Lap videos on YouTube.