Stars collided at the Miami International Autodrome last weekend. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was invited to be at the venue as part of the audience for the Miami Grand Prix. Through his affiliations with Red Bull Racing, he got to meet none other than the Formula 1 World Champion, Max Verstappen. However, he has one regret about the interaction they had.
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He spoke about the entire experience of meeting a four-time F1 champion during a segment on Dale Jr. Download. Junior has long been a proponent of sim racing. He had even pitched the idea to his team nearly two decades back and had wanted to use platforms such as iRacing to prepare for real-time races. He’d only been laughed at back then.
The notion that playing “video games” could help professional drivers had seemed outlandish at the time. But through the influence of young drivers like Max Verstappen and William Byron, this view has changed a lot. And Junior is grateful for it.
The problem with the Miami meeting was that he simply didn’t let Verstappen know about it.
Regretting how he instead chose to talk about the weather and the racing in the rain, he said, “I have one regret from that… Maybe I wasted my opportunity of conversation on something frivolous. Something he is amazing at. I did want to tell him how much I appreciate him and what he does for sim racing.”
Verstappen on the cost-effectiveness of sim racing
Sim racing has become its own professional motorsports industry now, with highly advanced technology and gear. There are sim racing teams, like there are Cup Series teams and F1 teams. Verstappen is a part of one of the most successful teams, called Team Redline.
Over the years, fans have celebrated the champion for his achievements. Through it all, he has come to realise how this platform can make a massive difference for youngsters trying to make it in motorsports. He told The Athletic in an interview earlier this year, “We all know go-karting and the early steps into racing, they all cost a lot of money.”
“And in sim racing, you can see talent already when they are driving on very easy-going equipment, which you can buy in the local supermarket and save. It all costs a lot less money,” Verstappen added. He strongly believes that the cost factor has helped many drivers, from all around the world, to get involved.
He continued to stress that this will result in helping him find fresh talent that could potentially make it in the real world. “I know it takes time, but I do want to find the talent that can transition to real life,” he noted. “Not everyone has that in them.” Such a transition, akin to Byron’s, would be a beautiful story.
