Max Verstappen Leaves Sumo Wrestler Off Balance Ahead of the Japanese GP

There aren’t many praiseworthy terms left to say about Max Verstappen‘s performance over the last 3 years. The Dutch driver is proving time and time again that he is the biggest thing in Formula One at the moment. While the threat of losing the world championship looms over everyone, Adrian Newey’s car is quick enough for him to push through.

His driving style is not particularly unique per se, but it’s just the most efficient seen on track. Max Verstappen has razor-sharp reflexes and an understanding of his car, which triumph over all others on the current grid. Some Verstappen fans might say he has superpowers, and after seeing this clip, it might get hard to disagree.

Verstappen, the Sumo Wrestler

The 3-time world champion is proving that his skills are not limited to driving extremely fast. To be a Formula One driver, there is an immense amount of training that is required, and that has helped Verstappen pick up more skills. In a recent clip that surfaced on X, he is seen having a ‘balance’ battle with a Sumo wrestler while preparations for the Japanese Grand Prix are underway.

Before the Japanese Grand Prix started, Red Bull had some plans for their drivers, and that put Max Verstappen up against a Sumo wrestler. The two started by standing in a sumo ring and trying to get the opponent off balance. Verstappen starts by checking his hand size compared to the Sumo wrestler, and once he sees that they are pretty much the same size, he starts to find some grip.

After that, the two tried to push each other out of their position by pushing their hands into each other. Ultimately, the Sumo wrestler lost his balance, and Verstappen was announced the winner. The one thing to keep in mind is that Verstappen, just like every other F1 driver, has to go through immense training to drive the single-seaters they do. This builds up high reflexes, good agility, and, most importantly, a strong core.

With this, Verstappen shows that he is not only a master of one skill but a jack of others too. This can be seen quite often in Red Bull videos that are uploaded to social media, most famously his reverse-driving race with Yuki Tsunoda.

The Red Bull reverse race: Max Verstappen vs. Yuki Tsunoda

Red Bull is always up to some fun, out-of-the-box videos to promote their product, but the advertisements are often extremely enjoyable to watch and rewatch over and over. Having Formula One drivers get into strange vehicles and race, is just the norm at Red Bull, and that’s exactly what they did with Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda.

While the vehicle of choice was not too odd, the rules of the race were. Yes, they had to race each other. Backwards! The two drivers get into their rally cars, and Tsunoda goes first during the qualifier. Unfortunately, he ends up crashing into the car and retiring. Max Verstappen pulled off a clean lap and was going to start the race on pole.

After getting into a new car, Tsunoda and Verstappen started the race, which looked like it was close, but only for a few seconds. Very soon, the three-time world champion was seconds ahead of the Japanese driver, and that’s the position the race ended in. This was a fun race to watch, as it’s hard to imagine these drivers in anything except a hypercar or an F1 car. But this just shows that each driver has many talents, which are not limited to Motorsports. How else would Max Verstappen win against a Sumo?

Maybe he’s just Max Verstappen, and there is nothing the Sumo could do about it. With that said, what other talents of the defending champion do you know about? Let us know in the comments below.

Read More – Despite Max Verstappen Denying Mercedes Rumors, Red Bull “Drama” Can Force Him Out, Claims Ex-F1 Boss