Verstappen expands on plans for own racing team

Max Verstappen has expanded on his plans to form his own racingteam in the future. The Dutchman recently announced his own racingproject and is aiming to enter it into GT3-class competition from2025. Verstappen's primary focus is currently on Formula 1, withthe 26-year-old enjoying a highly dominant campaign this year bywinning 19 out of the 22 races en route to a third WorldChampionship. While he is looking to expand his own racing project,Verstappen confirmed that it is still only in the early stages.“Right now, it’s early phases,” he said in an interview forVerstappen.com . “Using Verstappen.com Racing, we sponsor andsupport the racing activities of various people close to me viaconsultations and advice. It all started with the sim racing ofTeam Redline. “Many people still think that sim racing is notprofessional, but it’s a serious sport, and I invest a lot of hoursinto it, to prepare and defeat everybody else. “We’re also busyright now at Verstappen.com Racing with Thierry Vermeulen in DTMand GTWC Sprint, and with my father in the rally races, but thegoal is to eventually start our own race team. We’ll begin in theGT3-class, and see which way the wind blows.” Making the step fromsim racing Verstappen added that “it would be wonderful if we couldcontinue growing to the highest level of endurance racing” in thefuture. This could include the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Verstappenadmitting it “would be cool” to enter the race in a car from hisown team. As part of the project, Verstappen is hoping to promotesim racers into real-life competition as he highlighted the expenseof racing in karting to begin the motorsport ladder climb. “If I dosomething, I want to do it right. I always want to win: at this aswell,” he said. “The focus is on making the step from sim racing toGT3, so that not only you can enter racing via karting, becausethat’s ridiculously expensive at the moment. “Sim racing, incomparison, is a lot cheaper. Such a switch is possible. It’shappened before, of course, but never really well, for a number ofreasons. “If you do everything professionally, I believe you canbuild a great racing career out of sim racing.”