Max Verstappen’s impressive debut in GT3 racing at the Nürburgring has reignited the debate over whether top-tier sim racers can make a credible jump into real-world motorsport. The four-time Formula 1 World Champion, known for advocating the transition from sim racing to professional racing, secured a milestone win at the Green Hell, underlining that sim racing is emerging as a serious avenue for earning a spot in competitive motorsport.
Partnering with British driver Chris Lulham, Verstappen claimed victory in the NLS9 event—the 57th running of the ADAC Barbarossa Prize—driving the Emil Frey Racing No. 31 Ferrari 296 GT3. Verstappen immediately took control after an excellent start, leading into Turn 1, and alongside Lulham, maintained a commanding lead that resulted in a winning margin of 24.496 seconds. This marked Ferrari’s first triumph in the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie since 2017.
The Competitors and Their Sim Racing Backgrounds
The runner-up was Haupt Racing Team’s No. 9 Ford Mustang GT3, driven by Fabian Scherer, Dennis Fetzer, and Jann Mardenborough. Mardenborough’s presence is significant given his roots as a winner of the Gran Turismo Academy, a program renowned for turning sim racers into professional drivers. This demonstrates the viability of sim racing as a foundation for real-world racing careers, with Lulham’s involvement further cementing the point.
Chris Lulham has a well-established history with Verstappen in sim racing, having been personally chosen by Verstappen to join Team Redline, his sim racing outfit. Lulham boasts major wins, such as the iRacing Nürburgring 24 Hours and the virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans, and after a strong 2024 season, made his competitive GT3 debut with the support of Verstappen.com.
Industry Perspectives on Sim Racing’s Rising Influence
YouTuber and Nürburgring commentator Misha Charoudin argues that this event is evidence of sim racing’s evolution into a critical stepping stone for aspiring professional drivers, challenging outdated stereotypes that label sim racers merely as gamers.
“First of all, P1 and P2 – something very impressive. P2 was actually driven by another very interesting person, if I might say so. Jann Mardenborough, who you might know as the hero from the Gran Turismo franchise, who won the Gran Turismo Academy, became a race car driver himself, and ever since has lots of great and inspirational achievements as a real-world race car driver.”
– Misha Charoudin, YouTuber
Charoudin continued by noting how sim racers like Lulham and Mardenborough are closing the gap to established motorsport competitors. Lulham’s karting experience laid the groundwork, but his sim racing achievements, notably in iRacing, were pivotal in gaining Verstappen’s attention for his race team, a platform created to integrate top sim racers into professional driving.
“But what I want to get at is this is actually extremely interesting…We have Jann on P2, who managed to close the gap to the Verstappen.com race car from 1 minute 10 to just 24 seconds, together of course with their team-mates and traffic and etc. We have Chris Lulham, who started – of course he had some karting experience – but he went more professionally in iRacing as a sim racer back in 2019 up until now. And he was so good that Max Verstappen chose him among also other drivers to participate in his Verstappen.com race team where he wants to give opportunities to drivers who come from sim racing and put them in the real race car driver seat.”
– Misha Charoudin, YouTuber
The YouTuber also highlighted other high-profile sim racers becoming influential in real racing, including Jimmy Broadbent, Steve Alvarez Brown, Tim Heinemann, and Verstappen himself.
“But we have Jann, we have Chris, we have Max Verstappen, who is also a highly successful sim racer. We have Jimmy Broadbent, Steve Alvarez Brown, my team-mates. We have Tim Heinemann, who is extremely successful now coming from KW to Falken Race Team – of course highly successful sim racers who are becoming dominating real-life racers.”
– Misha Charoudin, YouTuber
Sim Racing as an Essential Training Ground for Future Racers
According to Charoudin, recent results like this Nürburgring win should dispel persistent doubts about sim racers’ legitimacy in motorsport.
“So the result of last weekend and all the other achievements of other drivers that I mentioned should definitely by now kill the stigma of the fact ‘oh, sim racers are just some gamers,’”
Charoudin explained. He predicts that within the next decade, sim racing will become a prerequisite for drivers aiming to compete professionally because it provides cost-effective training without the prohibitive expenses of traditional karting and racing.
“I believe as a matter of fact that in between now to the next 10 years, it’s going to be mandatory to be a sim racer before you’re going to be considered a professional race car driver I would say by teams so you can start competing in real-life racing and people would not really look at it, ‘oh sim racing is just a game,’ because let’s face it: the reality is you only need a sim hardware – electricity bill of course – and you can drive as much as you want. If you crash you just hit the restart button and you go again. The reason why it is so hard to become a professional race car driver and to make it up to Formula 1 is because the running costs and travel costs. If you go into karting championship, I believe the first racing years cost you already quarter of a million euro to the world karting championship.”
– Misha Charoudin, YouTuber
“You might be spending up to a million euro a year because you have the team cost, travel cost, the running cost of a kart purchase, tyres, brakes, fuel, you name it. And in case of a sim, again, just electricity and the purchase price of the sim.”
– Misha Charoudin, YouTuber
The Broader Impact of Verstappen’s Nürburgring Success on Sim Racing’s Future
The outcome of the ADAC Barbarossa Prize at the Nürburgring not only reinforces Max Verstappen’s stature as both a racing and sim racing talent, but also signals a shifting paradigm in motorsport development. By competing and winning in GT3 events alongside experienced drivers such as Chris Lulham, Verstappen has helped to blur the boundaries between virtual and physical racing.
This victory boosts the legitimacy of sim racing as a training ground and recruitment pool for motorsport teams aiming to discover new talent. As costs in traditional karting and racing continue to rise, the accessibility and immediacy of sim racing make it an increasingly attractive option for future drivers. The sport’s evolving landscape suggests that sim racing will become more than just a hobby—it might soon be an essential chapter in any driver’s racing career.
