Max Verstappen may be an F1 champion, but he knows how to keep his skills sharp, and often participates in racing game esports. These virtual races require a lot of the same skills the real thing does and allow esports stars to compete with real racing champions.
As often happens in gaming, things can get a bit heated, and Max Verstappen lost his cool during a recent iRacing event. As can be seen in the Twitch clip which now has over 200k views, the incident involved Verstappen and German racer Sven-Ole Haase.
As the pack is coming in for a turn – just over an hour into this three-hour race – Haase underbreaks and shunts in the back of Verstappen’s car, causing him to hit his teammate, Diogo Pinto as they both spin out. Verstappen gets back onto the track and immediately has his eyes set on revenge.
At the next opportunity, he entirely cuts a corner to catch up to Haase – who climbed to second place following the initial collision – and at the next corner, refuses to break and sents both himself and Haase spinning off the track.
The commentators branded it a “horrendous overreaction” and Verstappen was quickly disqualified from the race. Verstappen hasn’t commented on the incident, and it’s unlikely there will be any long-term consequences.
Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.