Max Verstappen’s Sim Racing in Trouble as Christian Horner Gets Strict Red Bull Sponsorship Advice

F1’s current reigning Champion Max Verstappen excels at racing on a simulator, just like he does in the real world. The Dutchman has his own Twitch channel where he often streams his gaming sessions and interacts with his fans. He is currently a part of Team Redline, his sim racing squad, and he took part in the iRacing Nurburgring 24 Hours for them. Interestingly, the 26-year-old won the sim race and went on to win the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix within a period of 97 minutes.

It is no news that Max Verstappen is a part of Red Bull, the current leader of Formula 1. But some might not know that the Dutchman’s sim racing team is also a fully professional one, and it got the Autosport Esports Team of the Year Award in 2022. Team Redline started their partnership with Max in 2015. Throughout this period, the Dutch lion has juggled his roles as a full-time F1 driver and a sim racer quite efficiently. But his latest stunt of dovetailing the Imola GP with a sim race has raised some eyebrows. Recently, Eddie Jordan fired an advice at Max Verstappen’s boss Christian Horner in this regard.

Eddie Jordan calls Max Verstappen’s Red Bull fee into question

Max Verstappen is currently one of the highest-paid racers on the F1 grid. He has won three titles to get Red Bull to pay him a sum of $55 million a year. However, he still continues a side profession by driving for Team Redline at the sim races. This might lead to the Dutchman’s burnout. And hence, Eddie Jordan left advice for Christian Horner to put his foot down in this matter.

During the Imola Grand Prix, Max went from driving a sim race to driving his Red Bull car on the historic circuit within a few hours’ time. Eddie Jordan spoke on Formula for Success regarding this. He said, “I wouldn’t have allowed it if I was Christian. I would have said, ‘Sorry, Max. You’re here, you’re being paid this kind of money to be representing sponsors of the team and everybody associated with it, suppliers, etc’.” Thus, Jordan believes Max juggling his professions might worry the Red Bull sponsors and Christian Horner should put a stop to his competitive sim racing soon since the Dutchman is already getting paid enough for his F1 duties.

Christian Horner calls Verstappen a “racing machine”

While Eddie Jordan might have his concerns about Max Verstappen’s sim racing taking a toll on his F1 career, the 26-year-old’s Red Bull boss Christian Horner is not worried. After the Imola incident where Max won a sim race only hours before coming to the race track, the Briton addressed concerns about his recruit. He said, “[Max Verstappen] is basically a racing machine, so it is quite often he is testing different set-ups in the evening and this kind of thing, so it is not unusual for him to be doing that.”

However, Red Bull is not only governed by its Team Principal Christian Horner but also its other stakeholders. If the people who are currently sponsoring Max to win for the team believe he needs to focus only on real-time racing, the Dutchman will have to leave his simulator career. Or it might also lead to him exiting Red Bull to take up a spot at any of the other teams who are okay with him juggling his professions. Speaking of Max Verstappen leaving his current team, some speculations on this deserve mention. In 2025, Red Bull will lose their car designing wizard Adrian Newey.

Now, Newey’s cars have made the Dutch lion win his three F1 titles till now. If the Briton leaves, speculations say that Max might lose confidence and leave the Austrian squad too. At a time like this, if Horner makes any noise about his sim racing, the chances of Verstappen leaving might increase manifold. Do you think this is why Christian Horner is not willing to address concerns about the current F1 Champ’s sim career? Let us know in the comments below.