
Max Verstappen made contact with lapped traffic while leading the virtual 24 Hours of Daytona, which dropped him and his Team Redline car several laps behind.
Verstappen and his team-mates had been leading the outright standings in the iRacing event with six-and-a-half hours to go, but in wet conditions, the reigning World Champion appeared to aquaplane while overtaking a GTD car up the inside of the International Horseshoe, which caused contact.
Max Verstappen crashes from the lead in virtual 24 Hours of Daytona
Verstappen and his Team Redline team-mates, Chris Lulham and Diogo Pinto, qualified third in the top GTP class and worked their way into the lead, but this incident saw them drop outside the top three.
He looked to move past a car in a lower class at the International Horseshoe hairpin while leading the race, but with grip low, he appeared to lose adhesion and made contact with the car on his outside as he then slid slowly into the tyre barrier.
He reversed out and managed to get to the pit lane, but lost the lead and three laps to the new leaders while repairs took place.
The reigning World Champion managed to make his way back to the pits after colliding with the wall in the sim race, and was eventually able to get going again in his stint.
Verstappen, driving the #20 BMW with his team-mates, dropped to fourth place and lost several laps in the pit lane, but the car was able to continue in the 24-hour race – with the event due to conclude at 12.45pm GMT on Sunday.
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Asked in a Q&A during the race about the differences between sim racing and the real world, Verstappen said the two were similar in many ways – with the main obvious difference being the physical aspect of what it takes to drive a Formula 1 car, in his case.
He explained: “I think the biggest difference is, of course, the G-forces.
“I mean, everything like accelerating, braking, cornering; that’s something that you don’t feel (in sim racing). Especially (…) at home, on a static rig, all these kind of motion rigs are slower.
“But of course, if you want to try and replicate a little bit of what you feel in real life, then you buy a motion rig. And then besides that, I think what is quite similar, I think in terms of how you work on the setup, how you work out strategies… And as you see now in this race as well, you know, it’s raining (so) you have to make the right call to be on the right tyres.
“It’s exactly the same as in real life. You’re working off a radar. So for me, I would say it’s like 90, 95% (the same).”
The real-life 24 Hours of Daytona takes place next weekend, with former Haas driver Kevin Magnussen set to be in the field in his new role as a factory driver with BMW.
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