Heineken® 0.0 ambassador, Max Verstappen, has opened up on the next step for his successful racing team.
His Verstappen Racing squad has already been successful in the world of GT sports car racing. Now, however, the Dutchman says he wants to take it to the top of sports cars in the Hypercar category. It follows the Dutchman already having tried out an Acura LMDh ‘Hypercar’ in the US, in addition to his wide variety of other racing exploits.
Red Bull’s talismanic driver, Max Verstappen, rarely gives himself time off.
The 24-event F1 schedule is busy enough, but the four-time champion has his Verstappen Racing operation to run.
Competing in the GT World Challenge and prestigious endurance events such as the formidable Nurburgring 24 Hours, the team uses a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo – which essentially looks like a souped-up road car with a snazzy livery.
Mercedes sports car chief Stefan Wendl has described Verstappen’s commitment to the project before, checking in on Zoom calls to keep up with engineer meetings of his own team.
When not directing things from afar, Verstappen is getting behind the wheel himself.
The Dutchman raced in the aforementioned Nurburgring event with a selection of handpicked teammates, leading the way at the world’s most intimidating race track until a driveshaft issue put his Mercedes out of the reckoning.
On another rare weekend off recently, Verstappen also made himself the substitute driver at Portimao in the GT World Challenge when one of his pilots found themselves double-booked.
The Red Bull man took on the race-closing night shift in his GT3 Mercedes, racing through the dark and overtaking 15 cars to go from 24th to ninth.
For someone with an insatiable motorsport appetite though, racing his Merc in the GT3 category isn’t enough – the Red Bull man wants to take things further.
Speaking to SPORTbible, Verstappen has described where he wants to compete next.
“Beyond GT3, yes, but not into Formula 1 or anything,” he says.
“It's probably more on the endurance side of things. So if you look above GT3, you go and look at maybe Hypercar, something like that.”
Hypercar is F1’s sports car racing equivalent, and is used in the World Endurance Championship (which includes the 24 Hours of Le Mans) and the American IMSA series. These endurance beasts pump out almost 700bhp, hitting nearly 220mph on the straights – perfect for an F1 champ to unwind on his weekend off.
Verstappen has already put an Acura Hypercar through its paces in 2024 for a promotional video when his Red Bull team was powered by Honda.
“Of course, I have driven these cars on the sim before, but to get the feeling in real life was really cool,” he said at the track day in Las Vegas.
“I have driven it a bit on the sim, so that helped with the feeling and how the car handles, and had I not done that before, it would’ve taken longer to get the feeling – so for me it was quite natural. Just wanted to have a bit of fun out there.
“I know I want to do it in the future, it’s just finding the time.”
Now though, the Red Bull F1 team has a partnership with Ford, the car manufacturer also having just built its own Hypercar.
The Blue Oval will take on Ferrari, Cadillac and Aston Martin in the World Endurance Championship and the Le Mans 24 Hours from next year.
Would Ford be able to call on Verstappen’s services? We asked him which fellow F1 drivers would make his dream line-up, in a Le Mans race where each is shared by three drivers.
“Maybe in the future that would be great,” he says. “It's just very hard to [choose].”
When SPORTbible pushes him for a split-second choice, Verstappen says: “Fernando Alonso – he has proven already that he was able to do it [with Toyota in 2018 and 2019]. For example, Nico Hulkenberg [too]. He won Le Mans [with Porsche in 2015], so you know there are a lot of great options.”
Verstappen has no more races outside of F1 currently booked in but, with the Dutchman going on record saying he wants to tick off all the great endurance races at Le Mans, Daytona and Spa-Francorchamps, don’t expect it to be too long before he’s back behind the wheel of a sports car.
Leave a Reply