I beat Max in an MX5 race in an iRacing hosted session along with Shane Van Gisbergen one day by one tenth of a second. Happened over two years ago and I think I'll be riding that high for another 8 at least.

Max being as quick as he is on the sim is incredible, mostly because the guys he's up against often do this as their job...so their chosen sim/car they drive day in, day out...Max doesn't have that luxury with his F1 schedule and fitness training. To be as quick as he is, is insane.

He's insanely dedicated. He puts in more time than almost everyone else in prep for special endurance events.

Max stated in an interview that he DOESN'T have a racing sim on his airplane (1:49) but, instead, in his trailer/motorhome that he uses to drive to races in Europe. Personally, I don't think it's outrageous if he did have a racing sim on his airplane 🙂

I'd say the most impressive thing is how the game developers have managed to make the Sims so realistic that an F1 champion says the cars react like real life.

You can drop Max in a shitbox and he'll still drag out times thought to be impossible, the kid is a genius and the more I learn and watch him, the more evident this has become to me. He'd be a champion in any Motorsport or car he drove, that's just nuts, very few drivers can pick up a new motorpsort so quickly and be quick too.

That Bathurst lap was one of the most incredible feats of driving that I've seen in my life, virtual or not. On the ragged edge the entire time, maximizing his use of the track... There's a reason he's a bloody champion.

Max is lightning, there's no other word. He genuinely reminds me of Senna or Schumacher in his will to win and competitive nature

You should have also mentioned that he competed in the iRacing Porsche Esports Supercup in 2020 in the Spanish GP (wildcard). Qualified 6th and finished 2nd in the feature race, only behind his team mate (Benecke) who was competing for the championship and not attacked him because of it. PESC is the best sim racing championship yet and he almost won a feature race in a one off appereance...Mind blowing

Hearing things like he's opening Fifa packs before quali or he is in the sim 3 hours after a race (win) just blows my mind. This guy is just different all around. And I love ut.

Max is the real deal and has been for a long time. I’m a huge Kimi fan and when he overtook him on the outside, in the wet, at Brazil made me see how good he really is. Easily the BEST driver on the F1 grid right now

His unrelenting dedication is what makes him stand out . Say what you want but he is one of the best F1 drivers ever.

Goes to show Max is a true driver in every aspect in comparison to many others.

Ive been iracing since 2009 and I only heard of the turn up the tire sounds/turn down the engine sounds trick like 3 months ago. I didn't even realize they could be turned up/down independently. It definitely helps me get more out of the rubber!

Very reminiscent of Schumacher in both driving style and mentality 👀🦈......that killer instinct is unmatched.....definitely one to watch.......

What a legends. Finishes a race only to hope on the sim and race more

Max verstappen is the Renaissance man of the racing world. A generational talent! I can't wait to see what the future holds for him!

When Max stops driving in F1, I will be very upset, because we are definitely witnessing one of the biggest racing talents in history.

Max is a living embodiment of what a human can do if they achieve their potential. Granted, there is some natural gift in there also, but the man is almost a cyborg that has spent its entire life on a track, either real or virtual.

Max is so talented I wish people could appreciate him without having to pit him against their fav driver. I've been a Lewis fan since I was a boy (25 now) but why can't we just appreciate talent...

The level of confidence Max had is what I admired the most, not afraid to face head-on against a completely different platform that is filled to the brim with alien talents to prove his speed.

Motivation to work hard is something I consider a true virtue, no matter what the profession. I was impressed with Max the very first season he arrived in Formula 1. His cheeky pass on Bottas at Monaco and that iconic pass on Nasr at Spa, among others, made me curious to see more. I thought that's all just natural raw talent in one type of car, but now I see there are also countless of hours of work, that the guy actually tries to become, like, Leonardo da Vinci of race driving. Impressive.

I urge everybody to go and watch that Bathurst Quali lap he did in full. Its absolutely unreal.

Verstappen's driving style is very similar to Michael Schumacher's, in that Schumacher also liked a pointy car that he could make micro-corrections while turning in the corner. Raikonnen was also like that. It's one of 3 F1 driving styles that are most commonly known. There's the Prost driving style (very smooth, likes understeer, car rarely ever out of shape, one-time throttle input out of corners, easier on brakes and tires; Vettel and Button were like that) and the Senna driving style (aggressive attacking style, constantly on and off the throttle, moves the car around; Alonso and Hamilton are both like that).

Max is an amazing driver. I know the battle between him an Lewis has been polarising to say the least, but he's in my opinion one of the greatest to have ever driven. I see him as a person with no fear and big balls. I think that goes a long way. No-one can takeaway just how good he is though.

My best memory of racing Max on iRacing was fixed setup Ferrari GT3s, 15 minute sprint race, Daytona Road Course. Well ahead of me, Max and Kelvin van der Linde finished side by side across the line, Kelvin winning by a few thousandths. Just behind them in third was Lando Norris.

His jet does not have a sim... Was that not disproven?

I used to be skeptical of Max's absolute driving ability, but it seems obvious now that he is a truly super-skilled driver.

It is amazing to see his genetics, his upbringing and his character all in one person. Truly amazing. Sector 3 in Q3 in Monaco 23 was just one of these examples where complete genius skills executed with the biggest balls shows how freaking good he is.

It is strange that being driver of a real race car, he can still feel the excitement of driving in sim. One of the answer must be that he is so competitive, he still needs more challenges to vent out his competitive energy.

Max verstappen 2X F1 world champion Karting legend Top 3 simulator racer Top 50 fifa player The man has way too much time to achieve all this

I am a casual sim racer. Had the opportunity to attend a Porsche experience center to take an hour of instructed sports driving in a 911 4S. It was an eye opening experience to feel the weight shifts, tire load in trail braking an the occuring forces. "The real thing" is giving enormous feedback even when far away from the limit in contrast to a forces feedback wheel.

He is unbelievable! This kid can drive!!!!! One thing I LOVE about his driving is his patience and situational awareness. He knows these tracks so well and knows exactly when to make his move, He is OK giving someone the lead knowing full well he will take it back a turn or 2 later. I would love one of these sims!

Exclent video Scott! Love your break down of his SIM Racing vs his real world driving.

I can't afford to take my car to the track as much as I would want to so I got a cheap sim rig and used iracing to learn the local courses I was going to drive at. Instead of curing my need to go to the track it put it in overdrive. My new goal is to save up and visit all the local tracks in my area. The fact that max can do both at the highest level is just insane.

Congratulations on 1 MILLION subscribers!! 🎉🎉

Awesome Video! its great to have a personalities like Max in simracing and race against them 🙏 Keep going 🔥

Great video! And huge congrats on 1M followers! I remember watching when had about 400,000 :) Congrats on the growth!

It's why it all checks out for Max. On the "Get to know the Grid" video that F1 released before the season, Max basically said "If I wasn't a racecar driver I'd be racing two wheels or management of some sort". Think he mentioned sim racing as well. Basically, this man is right where he belongs, he was always destined to be a high level racer with that kind of tenacity & desire.

yeah bathurst is really hard, I found myself adjusting the brake bias and swaybars on some of the corners to induce understeer or oversteer

The simrig is in his jet was misreported. I believe it was his motorhome.

Having seen this video I'm starting to warm a bit to Max, good on him.

I completely agree on the fact that when you are racing sim you don't have the seat feedback. The lack of G forces on sim racing I find it very difficult to adapt to. I'm used to dirt oval racing in real life and when I try it in Iracing it is ridiculously hard without the sensation of the grip on the tires. Pavement racing is a bit easier to translate from sim to real-life.

Remarkable to translate skills and driving so well between real and virtual racing. Most sim racers utterly dedicate themselves to be being the best at that discipline. Max dominates sim racing in addition to being an F1 world champion. Insane talent.

Another hugely ammount of work, I appreciate all of the stuff you bring here. Thanks for sharing.

thanx for presenting ! thanx for producing ! love the content! love the sport ! Go Max ! Legend ! 🤘 🙏🏽 💙 🇳🇿

Schumacher added fitness to the drivers program. Or took it the next level. Max is doing this with the virtual world.

Max has impressed me, even more so in Sims then in real cars (and I was oddly enough able to work w/ him on the sim now and & his first time in cars back in Florida when he was 14) the expensive nature of racing VS. the direct connection to everyone in the world in gaming, makes sim racing (and gaming in general) far far more competitive and more difficult to reach the top. The fact that he can compete at the highest level in sim racing, is more impressive to me from a talent standpoint, then that he can compete against the top 1% of 1% of drivers that had access to the +$5million you need just to get through the lower ranks. because of this fact, racing has among the very lowest talent pools in the world, where as sim-racing (and gaming) has the highest talent pools and lack of barriers in the world. Although sadly now sim-racing you are starting to need $10k rigs to compete at the front....man my argument is getting weaker, but console games at least give a gateway for these talents to start out. This also means that the number one racing minds in the world are not real racers, but more likely sim-racers. [taking out the feel for the tires of course, which is the final, most important thing for ultimate pace, and where most of the top sim-drivers have struggled IRL]. To me its amazing that MAX can compete with the best racing minds in the world, and in fact so many other real -life drivers are surprisingly good at sim racing. (I don't think they put in the time that MAX does though), but I had Pat O'ward on the sim this week at St Pete (and he is never on a sim) and he was amazingly fast right off the bat. He was quite a bit faster then Grosjean whose on the sim all the time. They are both pretty similar on the real track, which tells me they get their speed in slightly different ways and perhaps Grosjean has a slightly stronger feel for the car and tires, but is very slightly weaker on the mental processing side then Pato?? There are some competitive aspects i like about real racing in terms of track time, over sim racing. If you are Rich with Time, you can just put in an insane amount of time and sorta create alot of muscle memory and discovery time in exploiting the track & physics. where as IRL racing, track time is very limited and you have to be more adaptive. Some drivers have that time and are sort of "programing" themselves more and they have a slight advantage in some respects and will be very fast. Ultimately, what I call the "adaptive" talents will have advantages in other respects on the sim, and often come out on top, but IRL you get very little track time and very different conditions from session to session, that the "programming" aspect is not nearly as heavy of an affect IRL. Ultimately, MAX is so super dedicated and does put in an insane amount of time IRL and the sim that it makes it hard to judge. We've seen super talents w/perhaps a slight bit more natural pace in the car, but he is the stongest talent all around, and I think hes SUPER strong mentality, as well as, his Mental Capacity to absorb everything is off the charts for IRL dirvers. This Mental capacity is essential for Pro Gaming and I think this is a large part of what he has that makes him the best driver in the world right now and of course he is still highly adaptable driver as well just makes him a killer among IRL drivers. hmmm, i'd love to compete with him in FPS gaming. In gaming terms, racing naturally is far more static, less adaptive, less competitive, and less mentally demanding then the top FPS games. Its just so dynamic and difficult and fun, I would love to see MAX compete in this. It be hard to say if he's aim would be quite good enough, but he really is working with a FPS level mental capacity to absorb those highly dynamic scenarios and would prob do super well there too.

Great content and well presented as always 👍🏻👌👏👏

To do something that much daily in different mediums, you have to be addicted to it. Max is extremely lucky that his addiction directly helps him improve his career. Many other drivers may relax by eating out, celebrating, reading books, watching movies, whatever, but Max literally relaxes by playing racing SIMs. It's a huge natural advantage for him. Even if it's not 1-to-1 practice for F1, it still helps and gets him more racing hours.

I think this is the single most balanced and mature video on comparing "real world" to "simulated" racing. I'm showing this video to any of the "iTs Not ReAl rAciNg" crowd.

I raced with him on iRacing and he has unbelievable control of the car. It’s impossible to replicate his braking style even with €1200 pedals.

Great informative stuff, must say that I've run at Bathurst in a real car flat out, it's a scarily brilliant circuit.

I agree so much with mid engine weight distribution for getting rotation on turns. It’s crazy how the world record time on Bathurst was set with a front engine vehicle though. Makes you kind of curious about weight distribution relative to elevation changes throughout a track.

He doesn't drive the sim like an F1 racer... he drives the F1 car like a sim racer.... it's all good. He's a beast.

I watched the Ver / Per qualifying lap video right after this one 😂 everything is gained on … corner exit 😂

I think doing both can be very valuable. I started racing the passes when I was 16 in a crappy NA subaru and it taught me how to corner without grip, steer using weight shifting, and feel through a corner. I eventually started sim racing, and it gives you a place to push your limits. You don't have to leave a safety margin in Assetto when you can just reset the lap if you crash. It lets you push your tires to the limit and expand your skills in a different angle.

Great video/explanation. Love your work! 😎

I'm primarily a Schumacher fan, but after watching Max since his entry to F1, it's hard to imagine anyone could be a more capable driver. He now has no weakness at all. Even Schumacher dropped the ball on occasion, ether under pressure or or the odd silly mistake while leading. With Max you just know he won't make a mistake whatever the situation. Just unbeatable. Redbull is lucky he's so loyal, I bet the other top teams would pay any figure of money to sign this lad...

There's something called a butt kicker which adds vibration to different areas on a rig. It's amazing how it can replicate suspension travel or wheel slip, it gives more of a sensation that your in a car.

Very very good analysis and explanation. Congratulations!

The turning up the tires makes super sense cuz ur tires are extremely important. As long as there’s some type of key or marker u can tell when the tires are degrading but that crazy to the actual game production is that spot on

I'm also really impressed on the level of software that allows real life to merge so well with virtual.

I been playing a lot of Asseto Corsa in VR and I have to say it’s amazing, once you get use to VR it’s hard to go back.

Veryyy Cool

I wanna reply this video to everyone in instagram comments saying its just the car. In sim games, everyone has the same opportunities, yet he is still extremely fast in any given car.

This proves Max is the GOAT, his talents in racing is something you don’t see with other drivers that often

He was also a top 25 player in fifa at some point, i mean the man is insane!

The dedication that max has, either be sim racing or F1 is remarkable and respect worthy for sure. Dude has the champions mentality

Max resembles pretty much close an 2020's Ayrton Senna in the sense that they both really got into 'being a total driver', cheers from Brazil.

Nice timing right after qualification :)

I do wish Max could race in the WEC. I'm so curious to see what he could do in tracks like Le Mans, Bathurst and Sebring.

I can't believe how fast your channel has grown over the last couple of years. Well done!

I don't think Max is struggling with an under-steering car. He still won with an understeering car, beating checo in race pace, with a huge margin. He still beat leclear with an understeering car in the first half of the season. It is just that an understeering car is just slower than a pointy car. Max knows that the car can go faster but due to the under-steering nature of it, making people think he is struggling. But not much driver can push the car to the limit that feels that the under-steering nature is getting into their way.

I really can't wait to see him expand his horizons to wec and maybe indy for the triple crown, dakar would also be interesting, this dude is bread for racing and F1 isn't the only discipline out there

Great content!!! Enjoyed every sec of it.

i'm a sim racer and this video i can learn how to improve my lap times...thanks Scott..

He always maxed out his potential, he should be called Max.

I could see Max trying to get his pilots to do some aerobatics to simulate the G forces in the sim

First time came across your video. Who is this guy how are you so knowledgeable in f1 and car racing sport Great vid love it

Just downloaded iRacing after almost 3 years of buying my g29. I finally gathered the courage . I´ll just finish my meal and get into it. I've seen a ton of vid since then, and this is one of the best. Cheers!

He was also top 21 in FIFA in world rangings 💀

Don’t forget that this guy is somehow also on of the best Fifa players in the world

gr8 content mate, cheers.

I would love more videos like this one!

Max is a racing prodigy. Bosstappen.

Max is the proof that Sim helps real life racing

congrats to 1 million subs dude

Great analysis! There were some audio/video sync problems in this video, though. It seems like the audio of you speaking wasn't correctly syncronized with the video of you.

Him and Michael best ever there were. Since 1996 i never seen such a talent, only those 2 . And I watched seasons with Prost Senna Mansell ... We are witnessing Masterpiece!

Honestly! Max should also win a LeMans trophy! That would be incredible!

Correction max already said he doesn’t have a sim in his plane that was a joke Helmet made about max! He said he would never do that. But I do agree with you about his skills on a sim.

Great video as usual. Unfortunately, the audio was badly out of sync.

There are people out there that can translate their virtual experiences into a real-life experiences like playing or watching a video and immersing themselves as if they are in there would give them a slight edge in knowledge and skills on certain situations.

TeamLH dislikes this 😂 Max is almost unstoppable for many seasons of f1 to come I think given that his car is also rapid

No wonder Max has said he's considering other types of Motorsport. He'll dominate whatever he's in.

I’m sure you know about it, but just in case you don’t: Check out William Byron’s background in Iracing and how it got him a top ride in the nascar cup series. I love your nascar videos so much and would love to see you cover that!

I’ve just got my SIM and found this very interesting and useful 🙏🏻🏎🚀

he is, driver talentwise, the absolute GOAT in my opinion.

Because max verstappen is a real racing genius