Max is opening a door the racing ladder keeps charging for

I want Ferrari to beat Max Verstappen. I also love this part of what he is doing: taking sim racing seriously enough to put talent into an actual racing seat.

Those positions require no reconciliation. He can be deeply inconvenient to my Sunday and still be doing something for the sport that makes me want to stand up and applaud.

The idea that somebody’s racing future has to survive an enormous childhood invoice before their ability counts has always been a rotten filter. How many quick people never get far enough for us to learn their names?

Chris Lulham makes the argument tangible

Verstappen selected Team Redline’s Chris Lulham for a move into GT3 competition in 2025, including Sprint racing alongside Thierry Vermeulen and an Endurance program with Vermeulen and Harry King. [1] An actual seat, actual opposition, actual consequences.

Lulham had karted from seven and started sim racing at sixteen. [2] He is not evidence that nobody needs real-world preparation. He is evidence that the simulator can be part of a route back into serious physical competition instead of a separate room where fast people are told to enjoy their little hobby.

By the March 2026 rebrand to Verstappen Sim Racing, the program could point to Lulham’s 2025 class win at Spa and Gold Cup titles in Sprint and Endurance. [3] That is considerably more interesting than another celebrity telling young people to believe in themselves.

The barrier is not the imagination

Racing has no shortage of young people who can imagine doing it. Imagination does not pay for a season. The traditional ladder can eliminate a person before the supposedly pure contest of talent even begins.

That is why this route matters to me. Sim racing gives more people a place to develop and demonstrate something the physical ladder might never let them show. It still takes equipment, time and access. But it creates another place to look, and another reason to question whether the existing filter has been throwing away people the sport should want.

I do not want to watch a championship selected by whose family could keep absorbing the bill longest and then be lectured about the ruthless beauty of merit.

Put the talent in the car

The satisfying part is the commitment after the discovery. A fast sim racer is not simply paraded around as a feel-good story. The idea gets exposed to a real racing program, where the promise can succeed, struggle and develop.

That is where I want the story to grow. More chances for people whose ability outran their budget. More ways into the sport that do not begin with a parent funding the conventional route all the way through.

Max does not need me to like the car he drives on Sunday. But this? More of this, please. Find the quick ones the expensive ladder missed, and give the established field another problem.