Max Verstappen says karting is pricing out talent, explains why Team Redline matters

Max Verstappen says his involvement in Team Redline came from a concern he identified during his own racing: real-world karting has become so expensive that talent is being priced out, so sim racing can be a credible pathway into paid careers.

Verstappen has been a long-time member of the Team Redline sim outfit since joining in 2015, and the team itself dates back to the early 2000s as one of the best-known names in top-level sim competition.

But in an interview on the Up to Speed podcast recorded during Bahrain testing, Verstappen explained why the project is so important to him.

In the episode’s wide span of topics, from the 2026 cars to his family influences and his father still competing at 53, the Dutchman repeatedly returned to the same theme of extracting performance from training.

He described carrying that mindset from the simulator into race weekends and back again, adding how he pushes for marginal gains even in the final hours before a race. That logic then flowed into Team Redline’s purpose: if karting is the first rung and the ladder is being pulled up, the simulator becomes an equal and parallel route that can teach process before a driver ever has to sit in a real car.

Therefore, Team Redline becomes a bridge to the racing career that many dream of. Not necessarily Formula 1, but paid roles in categories such as GT and endurance racing, where factory-supported seats are now realistic.

"It’s also because I think go-karting nowadays is getting so expensive. Even compared to when I was driving. There’s no denying that even in go-karting nowadays is a lot of people with a lot of money. And I would do the same if I had a son or a daughter that was racing. You want to have the best material.

#31 Emil Frey Racing, Ferrari 296 GT3: Max Verstappen, Chris Lulham

Photo by: VLN

“But the problem is when you have the money, the prices go up and to get the best material... So I feel like people that don’t have the money or the possibilities in general, they are being left out or they just don’t get the right opportunities, people give up," he said. 

"People switch to sim racing and I see a lot of kids and drivers, they try to, through the sim racing world, make a career. They all dream of racing in real life. And I had that similar story with my driver [Chris Lulham] that is now in GT3. He did go-karting. He did very well. But then basically that's where the road stops.

“I’m just trying to create this opportunity where - getting all the way to Formula 1 is tough. It doesn’t matter even if you are the best go-kart driver out there, but I want to be able to give them a career. I want to be able that they can become a factory driver in whatever category in endurance. How beautiful is endurance racing nowadays with so many manufacturers and giving people great careers and platforms.

"And for me it's exactly that. I want to give the opportunity through sim racing that you can come and join us. Learn, I would say, how to become a professional driver in terms of how you operate from home or wherever you live before you even go into the real world." 

Whether that pipeline becomes a repeatable model is still to be seen, but Verstappen has made it clear that his own priorities increasingly revolve around building entries for others into motorsport rather than just adding more records to his own career.