Max Verstappen rapidly acclimatized to his high-end simulator just "two laps" after its installation in his new motorhome, which he will utilize throughout the F1 races in Europe this year and beyond.
The reigning three-time world champion seamlessly blended his real-world racing at Imola last weekend with virtual racing duties at the 24-hour Nurburgring event on iRacing.
"My motorhome was finished this year," Verstappen, who clinched victory at Imola and was also on the victorious Redline team online, shared with Viaplay.
"So I put my simulator in there now. It's actually the same as the simulator I have at home, so that's no problem."
The Redline team made considerable efforts to prepare Verstappen's setup in time and on-site. "We had to build a simulator that fits in his motorhome," Atze Kerkhof, founder of Team Redline, verified.
"We put it together and he was up to speed within two laps."
Kerkhof detailed the logistics: "We were going to take it to him in a Formula 2 trailer with MP Motorsport, but it was just a bit too big. But they still helped us enormously by taking it to Imola with a guy who transports flowers who happened to be there on business."
Redline engineer Jack Cubitt "was there to set everything up and build it into his motorhome," he further noted.
"But then we had a power outage," Kerkhof recounted. "A certain driver had a short circuit in his coffee machine where the motorhomes were, so we were forced to arrange an APC battery.
"Jack looked all over Imola and even Milan to find one, but eventually he found that Max drives for a team that just has these things in stock, so in the end he just asked the (Red Bull) team."
Now 26, Verstappen expresses a desire to participate in real-life endurance races like the 24 hours of Le Mans.
"Hopefully it will be possible in five or six years," Verstappen envisioned. "If we're going to have more and more (F1) races, it's almost impossible to do that now.
"If I want to do it, I also want to prepare well and be competitive," he insisted. "You have to test well and be well prepared with the right team, and you can't actually do that during a Formula 1 season at the moment."
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