The pressure is piling up rapidly on Max Verstappen amidst his ongoing title fight with Lewis Hamilton. The penultimate Saudi Arabian Grand Prix event is scheduled in less than a couple of weeks’ time.

Almost all of the F1 drivers are scrambling for some time on the simulator, considering they are almost marching their way into the unknown with the still under construction Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Interestingly, despite such a crucial race weekend in the offing, one driver decided to jump out of work for a while.

The Red Bull driver chose to prioritize fulfilling his E-sports teammate’s favor over the extremely crucial F1 simulator run.

Verstappen apparently joined his teammate for the VCO E-Sports Pro-Sim Series on Tuesday as the latter had no other professional racing drivers to pair up with.

The Dutchman not only joined him for the main event but also spent an hour prepping up on I-Racing.

What did Max Verstappen say?

Following heats 1 & 2, Verstappen took part in a virtual interview during which he revealed why he joined the E-Sports race rather than focusing on his championship fight in Formula 1.

“It was actually pretty funny. I mean, as you can see, I’m out of office. But, I was driving a bit of Jeddah with the F1 car and I got a text on Discord from Dominic, my teammate, because he didn’t have a pro-driver to join him for the race. So, he sent me a text and probably wasn’t expecting me to do it,” he said.

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“But, I was like, ‘yeah, why not mate?’ I closed the game I was playing and I went on to I-Racing again and yeah, just a bit of an hour prep for the race and told, why not help a teammate out.”

Overall, Verstappen is the one who should be under immense pressure despite leading the championship, considering his rival is a 7-time world champion. Surprisingly, that hasn’t been the case so far.

The Dutchman has looked far more relaxed, and this composure has indeed helped place him in the front seat of the never-ending title fight against in-form Hamilton. So, can he take it all the way and become Formula 1’s 34th distinct world champion?

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