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Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast
with Matt and Tommy.
It's not an emergency pod as such.
I don't know what you would call this to be like.
We knew it was coming.
We knew that he was gonna be racing.
And we thought, look, we may as well talk about it.
There's no formula one going on.
And Max Verstappen decided,
I'm not winning enough in F1 at the moment.
Let me go and do some side quests.
Yeah, it's getting boring, isn't it?
Back to Verstappen dominance and winning every weekend.
And yeah, I feel like I'm in 2023 again.
Well, you're not.
And McLaren are still very fast in formula one.
But yeah, Max did very, very well.
So let's recap exactly what went on.
I guess over the sort of month of September.
So first and foremost, of course,
he got the fastest lap in formula one history
by the average speed in Monza qualifying.
He then won the race the next day.
The next week after that,
he gets the Nordschleife permit in the Porsche GT4.
The week after that,
because he doesn't take weeks off apparently,
he goes and then wins, of course, Baku,
the actual job he has, which is formula one,
which is what, perfect.
And then the week after that, which is today,
he wins on race debut in the proper GT3 class
with proper power and everything else.
It's been quite the September for Max Verstappen.
And half of it wasn't even F1.
Yeah, and Mad to think he's got a newborn as well, crazy.
But yeah, it's an insane time he's having at the moment.
It is funny, isn't it, how,
and we've had this conversation before
about his sim racing,
and it always used to be brought up by like Lewis Hamilton
as well, when he went off and did,
obviously it wasn't racing,
but the different things he enjoyed outside of formula one.
That anytime this goes well,
the narrative is always like,
this is why they're so good that they can do it.
If this had gone badly
and suddenly he was having a bad time in formula one,
it would be like, why is he messing around in GT cars?
But this to me is just, this is Max just showing
that he is just built to race.
He's just obsessed, isn't he, his whole personality
is racing, motorsport, sim racing, everything.
I remember when we were lucky enough to,
when we went to Monaco a couple of years ago
and he did that speech on stage
and they were like asking him,
oh, what music do you listen to?
And he was like, I don't listen to music,
I just like racing.
I listen to V12 engines.
And he is just, he literally is just born
to be a racing driver, it's crazy.
He's just, it's his whole personality.
He's a racing robot, isn't he?
Yeah.
So let's get into the race itself.
I'm not the biggest of GT fans.
I think you're probably the same,
Tommy, like we don't watch it as much
and as passionately.
So if you are listening and you know,
you're probably the expert here
compared to us, but let's kind of recap what went on.
So they qualified, say they, first and foremost,
it's worth saying that Max Verstappen
was racing with Chris Lulham,
who has some racing experience,
but he's also known in the e-sports scene.
So it's quite a nice little combination
and a great opportunity for Chris as well.
They qualified P3, which was the day before,
if I'm not mistaken.
No, today is this morning.
I was at the same day.
It was this morning, yeah.
Perfect, there you go, missed that.
But today, yeah, qualified in P3,
there was a changeable condition qualifying,
but Max was still very close to the front.
And immediately lap one, turn one goes from third to first.
Yeah, at a rolling start as well,
which you kind of think it's an endurance race.
You know, what's the meme?
No heroics in De Sandoval that they say in the F1 game.
And someone did actually crash
and almost went into the back of Max.
You know, it's a four hour race, an endurance race.
You think, take it a bit easy,
but yeah, Max got a great jump at a rolling start,
short run down to turn one,
made the move, got into the lead.
And then it was kind of like his last two Formula One victories
where he was like, you know,
Harry Potter waving goodbye on the train again.
Tom, he's dropping all the memes in this podcast.
There's so many more references you get out
by the end of this one.
Yeah, of course it was off, wasn't he?
He was, he was off into the distance,
multi-class racing as well,
I don't know if we've mentioned that.
And yeah, Verstappen who had the onboard
and everything else,
made sure to properly show him because he is the star of the show.
Because 100,000 people were watching on YouTube,
which normally like no offense to the Nürburgring
and the less races,
but they normally have less eyeballs on there.
And yeah, it's an amazing thing for the series.
You mentioned about multi-class racing.
People that are maybe more experienced
with multi-class racing at Le Mans
and watching WEC are used to thinking,
okay, so there's like really quick racing cars
and then other racing cars.
But the multi-class racing in this series is insane.
There's people going around in like VW Golfs and stuff.
Like that's how low spec some of these cars are.
And like what an insane thing for some of these drivers,
like no offense to them,
they're still racing drivers in their own right, of course,
and don't want to like disrespect them.
But to be able to say like you've shared a race
with Max Verstappen is like,
what an amazing thing to have had it in your career.
And my word,
you're doing very nervous,
wouldn't you if you're driving around
in like a VW Golf or something
and you see Max Verstappen going past you,
you're like, don't crash.
Don't crash into it.
Quite literally.
And now I'm going to drop a reference of the videos,
the really funny sort of gaming videos
where you just hear do-do-do-do
and Max Verstappen's coming out of nowhere
and you're sat there in a little road car, essentially.
But yeah, it's a phenomenal sort of exposure
for this series and for the Nordschleife for itself.
A lot of people have heard of it,
but even putting that on the map a little bit more,
it's one of the greatest if not,
you think of a challenge,
that is such an insane challenge,
even on a racing sim,
I can't remember half the track.
No, I think that's the most insane thing about it, isn't it?
That we've seen Formula One drivers
go off and do these things before,
but the Nürburgring Nordschleife
got basically scrapped from the Formula One calendar
in the 80s because it was too dangerous.
And people are still racing here.
This is not like discrediting
the other people that have gone off and done WEC and stuff
because I love to see it,
but this is another level to go do something like this
because the WEC is still racing on FIA grade one circuits
and it's an FIA series.
To go do the Nürburgring Nordschleife race
in the middle of a Formula One season
is utterly bonkers, really,
and it shows that Max is just like,
he just loves racing
and that's why he's doing it, really.
It's not for anything other than that, is it?
No, he doesn't need to prove himself.
He didn't need to go and do that
and it just shows the thousands of hours
that he spent on his simulator does genuinely pay off
because you would think anyone just rocking up
to the Nordschleife are usually an eight-minute lap
in the cars that they were going round in.
That's a long time to just learn
the specifics of that track
and he was only a couple of seconds off
the fastest lap time we've ever seen around there.
Let's go to a question from people on Patreon
member Tony Soprano.
Is anyone actually surprised he won?
No, I'm not surprised he won.
I have looked into it a little bit more
and I've seen some very sort of passionate GT fans
saying that it wasn't the strongest of fields
compared to what it could have been
but there's also people out there
that will try and discredit anything
that Max Verstappen does.
So for me, I'm not surprised.
It would be cool to tick off the,
let's have a grid with every single one of the best GT.
But look, Max found an opportunity
in the Formula One season to go and race.
He, again, wasn't there to...
He genuinely probably didn't want any attention
and just wanted to go and drive a GT car in a race.
So, yeah, it was pretty phenomenal to watch.
I'm not surprised that he won
because we all know how talented he is.
And on paper, realistically,
a Formula One driver, we all say,
they're the best 20 drives in the world.
And for a lot of people thinking,
well, of course, he should have gone in there
and just wiped the floor with everyone.
You have to think that he's driving, you know,
an unfamiliar car.
He's not driving a Formula One car like he does every week.
Yes, he's driven that car a few times and things.
But the people he's racing against are good drivers.
They've done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of laps at the Nürburgring.
So it is still mightily impressive
to be able to just jump in and be that quick
because, of course, you have the balance of performance
as well, so it's not like he's got the fastest car
and he can just clear off and win by a mile.
Yeah, it's amazing what he's done.
So I'm kind of not surprised because we know he's talented,
but I think it can't be said enough
like how impressive that is.
And it shouldn't be like discredited
by how impressive it is to jump into a series
that you're not part of, even if you are, you know,
a Formula One driver that are the best in the world
because it's insane what he's done,
a really difficult track.
As you mentioned, you know, he was,
if you missed the race and didn't actually see it,
you know, he had two hours in the car,
his teammate had two hours in the car
and when he got out the car after two hours,
he had a minute lead.
A minute and two seconds, to be exact.
When he came into the pits, it was, yeah, like,
going into this for Max, there wasn't much to gain
because I think a lot of people would go,
well, I would expect him to win, he's Max Verstappen,
but if he had had any problems, he would have received
a bucket load of criticism.
He can't even be Gary in his VW Golf or whatever.
Mate, Gary's put a lot of work in, Tommy.
Don't you be disrespecting Gary in his VW Golf.
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Let's go to the next question.
P1 picture member Jim Clark is my goat.
Chances of Max getting the triple crown?
Not zero, but I don't think he's gonna go
for the Indy 500 personally.
I can't see him doing the Indy 500.
He is a GT man and LeMond.
I think he will go for the top class of LeMond.
I could see him doing that in a prototype.
He said many times that he'd love to race
with his dad at LeMond and also Fernando Alonso.
I mean, my words watching Max and Fernando racing together
would be my absolute dream.
At LeMond, I think he will go for that.
I wouldn't be surprised.
Of course, we'll get into this later.
There will always be talks of well, Max retire early
and all this kind of stuff,
but he will go for that at some point.
Absolutely 100% is gonna drive at LeMond
at some point in his career.
Whether that is a Fernando Alonso
where he does it mid-season,
but I can't see him doing the Indy 500.
I think he is a GT man.
He said himself he wants to win the Nurburgring 24 hours,
Daytona 24 hours, LeMond 24 hours.
That's where his passion is.
Yeah, and the Indy 500 is nothing to turn your nose up at.
It is probably the most dangerous racing event,
just the speeds that the Indy 500 drivers manage
and the fact that there are people,
drivers on the Indy grid that decide
to not do the Indy 500 because of it.
Max has just had a kid.
There's plenty of things
that I think would push him away from doing that.
I just don't think he'd probably even enjoy the spectacle
as much as doing these GT races.
So I'm of the same opinion
when it comes to what Max will do,
but he'll try and get,
he'll make up a different crown.
It's like the quadruple crown of GT or something
and just win every 24 hour race.
Next question.
P1 Petri, remember Alan Endepay
with Max clearly showing
that he is fast in multiple types of racing.
Could we see him possibly stepping away from F1
within the next few years
to take on other racing series?
I am more confident now
that the reason he stayed at Red Bull is exactly this.
I think that he has the flexibility
and perhaps even said,
look guys, I'll stay for another year
if you let me go play with my other toys.
And this is exactly what I think he's gonna do.
If the Red Bulls rubbish,
which some people think it might be next year,
he will at least be having fun,
having this, you know,
having lots of opportunities to go and do other things.
Would he have that same flexibility at Mercedes?
I don't think so.
I really don't.
So I am now after seeing this thinking
that's one of the polls for Max staying at Red Bull
where the team is his, let's be real.
But no, I don't think we start the narrative
of oh, is he gonna step away now?
Because he's won this GT3 race.
No, no, I don't think anything has changed.
And he loves racing so much
that I don't see him ever really wanting
to take his gloves off and hang up his steering wheel.
Do you hang up a steering wheel?
I don't know.
But I don't know.
He loves it so, so much.
Why don't we talk about him retiring?
Yeah, because also what this has proved
if anything is that he can go off
and even win these races
while still competing in Formula One.
So it's not even like the narrative is,
oh, he's finished seventh at the Nurburgring
and he really wants to win it.
And he needs to basically take some time out
from Formula One to really concentrate
on the series to be able to win it.
And of course, the Nurburgring 24 hours
will be a tougher challenge.
LeMond is a tougher challenge as well.
But Fernando Alonso, of course,
did the same thing where he carried on at McLaren.
And it felt like the same kind of thing
where the McLaren wasn't performing
the way he wanted to.
And he said, well, I want to go do this.
And it's almost that bargaining tool.
Yeah, I totally agree that I could see this being a thing now
where Red Bull have said,
oh, yeah, we'll let you go and race
on one of the most dangerous circuits on the world
if you'd like to.
If you stay.
Yes, I'm driving this kind of, you know,
go and do extreme sports.
Meanwhile, Max is literally racing around the Nordslide.
Exactly, yeah.
And I do think that this is gonna be a thing that he does.
I wouldn't be surprised if he does LeMond
while still racing in Formula One, like Fernando Alonso did.
I can't see him doing like a,
I want to do the whole World Endurance Championship season.
I think he'll just do like a,
I want to win LeMond, I'll jump in and do the staples.
So yeah, I don't think this is a case of like,
Max is gonna retire now and become a GT3 driver.
No, I really don't think so either.
Question from P1 Patriot member, TVR driver.
Do you think this will encourage more F1 drivers
to participate in other series?
No, I'd love to say yes, but I don't think it will
because it's just too difficult
and something you've kind of alluded to there
in the last question.
Max is in a very powerful position
that he can do whatever the hell he likes.
And Fernando Alonso is in a position
where he can do whatever the hell he likes.
No offence to just picking someone at random.
Ollie Bearman says, I want to race at whatever.
Ollie Bearman?
Well, he's new, he's a rookie.
Didn't they send you a flip in Teddy Bear for grace?
And I love the teddy bear.
I love the teddy bear, Bortoletto,
Ollie Bearman, Antonelli, everyone,
all these rookie drivers aren't in a position
to be able to tell their team
I want to go race at the Nurburgring
and they'll probably say, well no,
you've got contracts
and they're not in that kind of luxurious position yet
and they may be later down the line.
Look, like Fernando Alonso,
Max wouldn't have been at the time
if he'd said in his first year at Tarosso,
I want to drive in the Nurburgring.
Absolutely not what you're talking about,
getting in the car and driving,
focus on Formula One.
So, and these young drivers
are really interested in sim racing and stuff
and Ollie Bearman, the reason Ollie Bearman
came into my mind
was because when Max got back into the F1 paddock,
there was that video where Ollie Bearman
pretty much ran straight up to Max
and was like, what was it like?
Was it really fun?
And was I really excited to talk to him about it?
But unfortunately for them,
I just don't think, one, they're allowed to
and two, it's too difficult for them
to basically be able to go off and do this
while doing their campaigns.
Whereas, yeah, Max is in that much stronger position
because, you know, Nico Holkenberg
did Le Mans back in 2015
and you could have asked the same question again.
Now, the only people that have gone off
and been doing side quests
and that's 10 years ago now, which is mad to think.
Nico wasn't even an F1 driver then, was he?
He was, he was.
Oh, he was?
He did, yeah.
Okay.
And he just did two of the WEC races.
But yeah, and then didn't do it the following year.
So that was like a special thing
and 10 years later,
only Fernando Alonzo and Max Verstappen have gone off
and kind of done these two things.
Lando's Dando Toner.
But he wasn't an F1 driver, was he?
Oh yeah, it was the F2 at the time.
Yeah, that was pretty.
Maybe just, I think he'd just announced maybe
that he was going to be in McLaren.
He was going to be in McLaren, I think,
something like that, because he was with Alonzo.
So yeah, it's difficult.
I'd love to say yes, but Formula One
is such an intense sport.
This is the thing they always mention.
It's, there's so many races now.
It takes a massive toll on the drivers.
You've got to be an absolute racing nerd
and that racing nerd is Max Verstappen
because he will want to just race all the time.
Yeah, I think there are other racing nerds
as such on the grid for sure,
that love racing and things like that.
I don't think to the extent of what Max Verstappen does,
but it is very much a case of not being allowed to.
It's about, that is absolutely number one,
is they are not allowed to.
Most of the drivers will not be allowed
to go and do anything that might put them
on the back foot when it comes to their F1 seat.
Then below that, do they want to spend their free time,
which a lot of drivers claim that the circuit,
the calendar's really quite intense
and they need some time away.
Do they want to do that?
Some of them probably not.
So there are plenty of factors
that I think are at play here,
but the main one is that they aren't Max Verstappen
or I think Lewis Hamilton, if he wanted to do it,
he'd be able to, you have to be a big dog
to be able to go and just have fun in other series
as much as I think like Bortoletto
would love to just come and follow Max wherever Max goes,
to be honest with you,
and just be part of it because he's a proper Max fanboy.
So yeah, I don't think it's encouragement,
it's just being allowed to.
But I also don't think that the younger rookies,
especially in the younger drivers
should be doing other series
when there are 24 Formula One races to prepare for as well.
There's only so many drivers that have the capacity
that Max Verstappen has in his head.
So there you go.
Wow, we managed to chat for almost 20 minutes
about Max doing a GT3 race,
but that was good fun.
Tell me what your final thoughts?
Final thoughts are now back to Singapore
and to find out if it's championship back on
or if it's over.
Oh wow, you look at, yeah.
Yeah, when will it be?
Will it be?
It will be October, so the super September
that Max is having will end.
Super September is gonna end
and then it's back to October.
What would it be?
I was gonna say awful, that's A,
it sounded like A, what would it be?
Orid.
Orid, orid October.
Orid October.
Hopefully not for you
and for the F1 championship sake.
Oh yeah, please not.
I wanna see a Max Verstappen win by a minute.
But anyway, that's my final thought
because I won a three-way fight for the championship.
Anyway, that's something completely different.
Looking forward to Singapore
obviously next weekend and we'll see you soon.
That's love, bye.
Goodbye.
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About this episode
Max Verstappen’s recent GT3 race debut victory at the Nürburgring Nordschleife highlights his extraordinary versatility and passion for racing beyond Formula One. The hosts discuss his impressive September, including record-setting F1 performances and his seamless transition to endurance GT racing alongside teammate Chris Lulham. They explore the challenges of multi-class racing, the significance of Verstappen’s achievement on such a demanding track, and speculate on his future ambitions, including potential Le Mans participation. The episode also touches on why few F1 drivers can follow his lead due to contractual and physical demands.
Original notes
Turns out that dominating F1 isn’t enough for Mad Verstappen, because he’s just won his debut GT3 race at the Nurburgring! In his weekend off?!
We chat about Max’s hugely impressive drive, wonder if any other F1 drivers could go racing in other series and ask if Max could one day achieve the Triple Crown of Motorsport.
The Delusion Tour is just around the corner! We're heading to North America in a few weeks and there are still a few tickets available - click here to grab yours: tix.to/p1live
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