F1 News: Max Verstappen Bursts Into Online Rant After Being Forced To Quit Sim Race
Two-time F1 champion Max Verstappen burst into a rant after having to retire from the 24 hours of Le Mans Virtual race. The Red Bull driver claimed the event was a "clown show" when multiple technical issues prevented him from finishing the race which he was leading.
The Belgian-Dutch driver had been driving the Team Redline's number 1 car along with Jeffery Rietveld, Luke Browning, and Diogo Pinto. Unfortunately, the event organisers had to red flag the race on two occasions due to the technical problems.
When Verstappen lost connection, he went from first position to seventeenth, so naturally he was less than impressed. He then encountered similar problems roughly 90 minutes later and decided to quit the race altogether.
Verstappen said on his Twitch stream:
“They can’t even control their own game. This is already the third time this has happened to me, getting kicked off the game while doing this race. It’s also the last time I’m ever participating, because what’s the point?
“You prepare for five months to try to win this championship, you’re leading the championship, you’re trying to win this race that you’ve been preparing for two months, and they handle it like this.
“There have been two red flags, they cancelled the rain, because maybe that’s already a big influence, and people are still getting disconnected, and at one point we were hit by it, and they’re just not dealing with it, because they need even more people to disconnect.
The Belgian-Dutch F1 driver continued:
“Honestly, it’s a joke. You cannot call this an event. [It’s a] clown show. That’s why it’s better to retire the car.”
The event did carry on without Verstappen and the even organisers claim the 'wet weather conditions' led to server issues.