Sim-racer-to-driver path should no longer carry a stigma after Max Verstappen’s Nürburgring win

The start of GT3 of Max Verstappen at the Nürburgring asked again whether the elite SIM runners could successfully pass through real motorsport. We know that the quadruple champion is an ardent defender of such a transition, but the recent race at Green Hell confirmed that Sim Racing could indeed be a full -fledged way to win a seat in the race.

The Dutchman has teamed up with the British pilot Chris Lulham, the couple winning the NLS9 – 57th ADAC Barbarossa Prize – in the Ferrari 296 n ° 31 by Emil Frey Racing. After Verstappen took the lead before turn 1 after an excellent race start, he and his teammate created and maintained a substantial advance on the peloton. The couple won 24,496 seconds, marking Ferrari’s first victory in the Nürburgring Langstrecken series since 2017.

The second place went to the Ford Mustang GT3 n ° 9 of the Haupt race team, motivated by the trio of Fabian Scherer, Dennis Fetzer and Jann Mardenborough – the latter is a former winner of Gran Turismo Academy, a proof that a racing career launched by Sim Racing can certainly be a success, but Lulham also adds to that.

Lulham was a member of the team of the SIM Racing team from Verstappen, Team Redline, for a long time after being selected by hand by the Formula 1 pilot. He won major victories, including the 24 hours of Iracing Nürburgring and the 24 hours of the Virtual Le Mans. Now, with Verstappen.com, he entered the world of GT3 competition after a success in 2024.

YouTuber and the content creator of Nürburgring, Misha Charoudin, argued that this recent result indicates that the SIM race becoming a big step in motorsport and should end any persistent stigma around the SIM runners “just players”.

“First of all, P1 and P2 – Something very impressive. P2 was actually motivated by another very interesting person, if I could say it. Jann Mardenborough, that you could know the hero of the hero of the hero of Gran Turismo Franchise, which won the Gran Turismo Academy, has itself become a racing car pilot, and has since many large and inspiring achievements as a real racing car driver.

“But what I want to come is actually extremely interesting,” he continued. “We have Jann on P2, which managed to fill the gap with the racing car Verstappen.com from 1 minute 10 to only 24 seconds, of course with their teammates and their traffic, etc.

“We have Chris Lulham, who started – of course, he had a karting experience – but he went more professionally iracing As a SIM runner in 2019 so far. And it was so good that Max Verstappen chose him from other drivers to participate in his Vistapun.com racing team where he wants to give opportunities to the drivers who come from Sim Racing and place them in the real driver of the racing car.

“Right now, Chris Lulham is successful extremely in the Fanatec World GT Esports Sprint series. He has also had many other successes.

“But we have Jann, we have Chris, we have Max Verstappen, who is also a very successful runner Sim. We have Jimmy Broadbent, Steve Alvarez Brown, my teammates. We have Tim Heinemann, who succeeds in making real racers.”

The Nürburgring specialist thinks that Sim Racing could now become a necessary step in the career of a driver.

“So, the result of last weekend and all the other achievements of other drivers I mentioned should certainly kill the stigma of the fact that” Oh, the SIM runners are only players “.

# 31 Emil Fray Racing Ferrari 296 GT3: Max Verstappen, Christopher Lulham

Photo of: Jan Brucke / Vln

“I believe that in fact that in the next 10 years, it will be compulsory to be a SIM runner before being considered a professional racing car pilot, I would say by the teams so that you can start to compete with real races and that people would not really look at it, you need SIM equipment – the electricity course project, the electricity course field – and you can drive.

“If you crush, just press the restart button and start again.

“You could spend up to one million euros per year because you have the cost of the team, the travel cost, the operating cost of a Kart purchase, the tires, the brakes, the fuel, you call it. And in the event of SIM, again, just electricity and the purchase price of the SIM card.”

The result of this recent race is additional proof that the future of the SIM race is brilliant. If this trend continues, which it will probably be, the prediction of Chaoudin may not be so far -fetched.