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Underrated Max Verstappen Trait Which Got Lost in the Glitz and Glamour of F1 Revealed: “One of the Boys”

Published 01/19/2023, 8:00 PM EST

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via Reuters

Max Verstappen appears to be the type of person who is always serious. Despite wins and joyous moments, there are only seconds in between where you could actually capture him smiling. The rest of the time, he keeps a serious and focused expression on his face. But debunking this belief, Max’s teammate, Jeffrey Rietveld, from his eSports team, Team Redline, has spoken up.

The sim racers spend a lot of time together and most recently they worked together for the virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans, which ended disastrously for them due to unfortunate incidents.

via Reuters

In an interview with Motorsport.com, Rietveld spoke about Max and his behavior. He said, “He’s a very normal guy. He’s just ‘one of the boys’ and joking around all the time. But he’s also into serious hard work and data analysis to see how we can improve everything even further.”

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Complimenting Max’s skills as a driver and his putting them to use for the benefit of the team, Rietveld said, “On the one hand, you have a very good sim racer in Max. On the other hand, he is someone with a lot of experience and a great sense of what a car needs. He comes up with ideas for the setup that we as sim racers would not have come up with.”

“And even if he doesn’t participate in a race, he will still help with the set-up when he has time for it.”

Max loves to race online and has been a sim racer for a long time now. He’s equally competitive on the computer as in the car. He just hasn’t had the luck to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans virtual, although he was leading it this time around.

The Max Verstappen controversy after the virtual Le Mans

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Rietveld’s comments come just days after Max Verstappen’s remarks on the virtual event of Le Mans. The Dutchman, following terrible disconnections and a massive disadvantage, handed over and quit the race, calling it a ‘clown show’.

via Reuters

The reaction received criticism from several members of the eSports fraternity, who called Verstappen’s comments distasteful and discouraging for the community. Former F1 driver Romain Grosjean also joined the train and expressed his disappointment. But Max wasn’t alone in feeling such emotion. He received backing from his supporters, who termed the event a failure.

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WATCH THIS STORY: Charles Leclerc Gets Into Heated Debated With Max Verstappen Fan Over Dinner Time Conversation

Many fans also called upon the Dutchman to create his own platform for organizing the competition. Whether Max goes back to the competition or creates his own will be seen when the time comes.

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Written by:

Manan Goel

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Manan Goel is a Formula 1 author at EssentiallySports. As a literature student at Delhi University, he had been a geek for fiction and a nerd for sports. He claims Sebastian Vettel was his first love after seeing him at the Indian Grand Prix, and he has been a fan of the sport and Red Bull ever since.
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Edited by:

Ranvijay Singh