Verstappen has been a long-time member of the Team Redline simulation team since joining in 2015, and the team itself dates back to the early 2000s as one of the best-known names in top-level simulation competition.
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But in an interview in up to date In a podcast recorded during testing in Bahrain, Verstappen explained why the project is so important to him.
Across the episode’s wide range of topics, from the cars of 2026 to the influences of his family and his father still racing at 53, the Dutchman repeatedly returned to the same theme of extracting performance from training.
He described carrying that mentality from the simulator to race weekends and back again, adding how he looks for marginal gains even in the final hours before a race. That logic then flowed into Team Redline’s purpose: if karting is the first rung and the ladder is raised, the simulator becomes an equal and parallel route that can teach the process before a driver has to sit in a real car.
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Therefore, Team Redline becomes a bridge to the sports career that many dream of. Not necessarily in Formula 1, but in paid roles in categories like GT and endurance racing, where factory supported seats are now realistic.
“It’s also because I think karting today is becoming very expensive. Even compared to when I was driving. You can’t deny that even in karting today there are a lot of people with a lot of money. And I would do the same if I had a son or daughter who raced. You want to have the best material.
#31 Emil Frey Racing, Ferrari 296 GT3: Max Verstappen, Chris Lulham
“But the problem is that when you have the money, the prices go up and to get the best material… So I feel like people who don’t have the money or the possibilities in general, are left out or just don’t have the right opportunities, people give up,” he said.
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“People move on to sim racing and I see a lot of kids and drivers trying, through the world of sim racing, to make a career. They all dream of racing in real life. And I had a similar story with my driver (Chris Lulham), who is now in GT3. He went karting. He did very well. But basically that’s where the road ends.
“I’m just trying to create this opportunity where getting to Formula 1 is difficult. It doesn’t matter even if you’re the best kart driver out there, but I want to be able to give them a career. I want them to be able to become factory drivers in any endurance category. How beautiful endurance racing is today with so many manufacturers and giving people great careers and platforms.
“And for me it’s exactly that. I want to give you the opportunity through sim racing that you can come and join us. Learn, I would say, how to become a professional driver in terms of how to operate from home or wherever you live, even before you go into the real world.”
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Whether that project will become a repeatable model remains to be seen, but Verstappen has made it clear that his own priorities increasingly revolve around creating entries for others in motorsport rather than simply adding more records to his own career.
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