Max Verstappen insists that sim racing on Grand Prix weekends does not impact his performance in the real car – and he denies that he has agreed to no longer race late at night.
The Dutchman, who is set to land a power unit change grid penalty in Belgium, took part in a Spa 24 Hours GT event the night before the Hungarian GP.
His eventful race to fifth place, which included some heated radio comments, led some observers to speculate that his late night had had an impact.
However Verstappen is adamant that was not the case, citing previous occasions when he stayed up late.
“I raced until 3am,” he said when asked by this writer about his Budapest sim activity. “It’s not something new. And for me, it’s something very important in my life. Now there are no other sim races coming up anyway, so no one needs to worry about that.
“Always when you don’t win the race, you will always blame it on, ‘Ah, he was staying up until 3am,’ or ‘He’s one kilo overweight.’ There’s always things to make up that you can argue about when you don’t win a race.
“But for example, in Imola, I did win the race, both of them. So for me, this is not something new. I’ve been doing this since 2015, so for me, this is not something that is any different in my preparation.
“I’ve won three World Championships, I think I know pretty well what I can and what I cannot do, and I’m always very hard on myself, what is allowed and isn’t allowed. So I think with all the experience that I have in F1 I think I know quite well what is possible.”
Verstappen denied a suggestion from Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko that he had agreed not to compete into the early hours of the morning on F1 race weekends.
“We talked about it,” he noted. “I said anyway, you don’t need to worry. Like I just said there’s no other race coming up so, but no, it’s not that I have a ban or whatever.
“I also don’t need to tell them what they do in their private time during the weekends. And that’s the same for me.”
Verstappen also downplayed criticism of his colourful radio comments in Hungary, when among other things he complained about the strategy that he had been given.
“People that don’t like my language, then don’t listen in, or turn the volume down,” he said. “I am very driven to success. I think I’ve proven that already. And I always want to optimise stuff.
“Now, people can argue that you might not be so vocal on the radio, but that’s their opinion. My opinion is that it needs to be said at the time to maybe also try and force that the second pit stop would have been a bit different.
“And yeah, that’s how it goes. We are very open-minded. We’re very critical to each other as a team. And that’s been working for us very well, so I don’t expect that to change.
“That’s our approach. I think it’s important that we can be critical, because in this world that we are living now, I feel anyway, that a lot of people can’t take criticism anymore like it used to be, and I don’t want to end up like that.”
Verstappen disagrees with the principle of radio traffic being broadcast.
“In other sports people say things, but they don’t have a mic, of course, attached to their mouths,” he said. “I say what I want, but that’s our sport as well, naturally. You’re communicating a lot with the pit wall. You have, of course, the opportunity to talk.
“In other sports, maybe you swear yourself about stuff that you didn’t like, or a teammate didn’t pass you the ball. You call them whatever it is, but there is no mic. So just how our sport is, I guess.”
Adam Cooper F1 