Valtteri Bottas’ Accident Sabotages Max Verstappen’s iRacing Event as Love For Coffee Nearly Ruins 5 Hours of Hard work

Max Verstappen conquered a unique mountain in motorsport on Sunday in Imola. Within a 97-minute period, he won the iRacing Nurburgring 24 Hours with his sim racing team, Team Redline (1:52 pm local time), and the Imola GP (3:29 pm local time) with Red Bull. But a surprising detail has now emerged. F1 rival Valtteri Bottas’ attachment to coffee absurdly cost Verstappen a near loss in the sim race.

The iRacing event began on Saturday, May 18, and concluded on Sunday. So immediately after getting pole position in Imola’s qualifying, the 3-time F1 champ headed straight to his motorhome for the virtual race. He did a 2.5-hour stint in the No. 20 BMW GT3 before going to bed. Moreover, he managed to clock in 7 hours of sleep before another 2-hour sim stint in the morning, before the Imola GP.

Behind his smooth operation was Team Redline’s elaborate logistical effort to set up the sim in the Red Bull motorhome. Redline Director Atze Kerkhof explained how their initial plan of sim transportation with a Formula 2 team, MP Motorsport, failed. Eventually, they shipped the sim to Imola with a flower guy who was “randomly” visiting for “business.”

If you thought this was funny, buckle up. Once the entire set-up was ready for Verstappen to plug and play, there was a power cut. Kerkhof explained how a “certain driver who had a short cut (short circuit) in his coffee machine”. An X user has now revealed that it was Valtteri Bottas’ coffee machine that caused it, as claimed by a certain Dutch news outlet.

This doesn’t come as a surprise. Bottas’ passion for coffee is so deep that he carries his coffee-making equipment around the globe. The Sauber driver is also a co-owner of specialty roaster Kahiwa Coffee in Finland and has also been invited to various barista and coffee competitions worldwide. As for Verstappen, that power cut was luckily short-lived. Hence, the reigning F1 champ was able to sim race in all his glory.

Team Redline’s Director reveals Max Verstappen’s incredible magic away from F1

Ahead of the Imola GP weekend, Max Verstappen emphasized how he was “professional enough” to manage the iRacing event in a way that didn’t affect his F1 performance. He delivered as promised. Like his F1 prowess, he got up to speed in its virtual counterpart within minutes.

“Max is driving from his (Red Bull) motorhome close to the track,” Director Atze Kerkhof said in Team Redline’s Instagram post, adding, “To make it happen, of course, we needed to build a sim that would fit in his motorhome. It’s actually the first race he’s driving with the Simucube and using the Team Redline version. We built it on there and he was straight on pace. It took him two laps to be on pace.”

After winning the Imola GP, Verstappen even celebrated by replicating the iRacing logo with his arms. His mother, Sophie Kumpen, celebrated remotely after her “double winner” son’s Imola GP win. It would have been an entirely different story if Valtteri Bottas’ coffee machine chose another time slot to bring the power down.

Do you have a similar love for coffee as Bottas? Share your views in the comments below.