Reigning Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen has picked up his first race win of the year, securing victory in the GTD category of the prestigious iRacing Daytona 24 E-Sports event.
iRacing is widely regarded as one of the best sim-racing platforms on the market, a subscription-based service popularised by professional sim racers and racing drivers alike.
The platform has licensing agreements with some of the biggest motorsport series, including IndyCar, IMSA and NASCAR and runs over 80 organized racing series.
The iRacing Daytona 24 is the sim-racing equivalent to this weekend’s IMSA curtain-raiser at the world-famous International Speedway and is one of the most coveted sim-racing prizes.
Running from January 19-21, the eighth running of the race saw significant entrants in the form of Williams’ E-Sports team as well as Mercedes F1’s E-Sports outfit.
Williams ended as the overall winner in the GTP category, with the team’s four drivers (including IndyCar driver Agistin Canapino) campaigning the 24-hour sim-racing enduro with an Acura ARX-06 entry.
The LMP2 crown went to WSR Esports and Verstappen, along with teammates Ole Steinbraten and Gianni Vecchio took top honours in the GTD class in the #69 Team Redline Mercedes AMG-GT3 machine.
Verstappen is a regular on the sim-racing scene and has long cited it as one of his major passions outside of competing in Formula 1.
His association with Team Redline goes back all the way to 2015.
Remarkably, Team Redline’s association with sim racing goes back even further having first started competing in the virtual arena in 2000.
In the following two decades, along with its roster of all-star sim-racing talent, Team Redline has featured notable appearances from the likes of Lando Norris and its current racing driver roster features names like Aussie Supercars maestro and NASCAR race winner Shane van Gisbergen, IndyCar race winner Felix Rosenqvist, Spa 24 Hours winner Daniel Juncadella, DTM ace Kelvin van der Linde and IndyCar Champion Alex Palou.
The accomplished racing driver roster that has competed for Team Redline in sim-racing have also competed in multiple racing disciplines in the non-virtual arena, unlike Verstappen, who is restricted to the ever-increasing Formula 1 calendar.
However, the Dutchman is starting to see his sim-racing passions branch out, revealing plans to set up his own GT3 team in the not-too-distant future and expressing a desire to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Fernando Alonso.
