By Saajan Jogia

Copyright newsweek

Max Verstappen and Chris Lulham dominated the ninth round of the Nürburgring Endurance Series, securing victory with a lead of over 20 seconds at the checkered flag in Emil Frey Racing’s No. 31 Ferrari 296 GT3. While Lulham began his racing journey last year, Verstappen aced his run without prior GT3 experience on the race track. What is common between them, though, is the hundreds of hours of virtual GT3 experience, which is said to have played a huge role in their victories. That brings us to the question of whether sim racing could change the future of racing.

When Verstappen isn’t racing on Grand Prix weekends, he is mostly competing on his sim racing setup. Although the prospect of sim racing might sound like a video game to many, the Dutchman’s indoor racing sessions reportedly contribute to his racing prowess on an actual racetrack. Not to mention his sim racing squad, Team Redline, of which Lulham has been a part. The 22-year-old driver has scored big in the world of virtual racing, which includes his wins in the iRacing Nürburgring 24 Hours and the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual.

Another example of a talent seasoned by sim racing is former Gran Turismo Academy winner Jann Mardenborough, who finished second at the Nürburgring in Haupt Racing Team’s No. 9 Ford Mustang GT3, alongside his teammates Fabian Scherer and Dennis Fetzer. His feat helps establish the direct connection of how sim racing influences track performance in the real world, leading Nürburgring content creator Misha Charoudin to connect the dots and predict a new era of drivers advancing in their careers with the help of virtual racing. Speaking on his YouTube channel, he said:

“First of all, P1 and P2 – something very impressive. P2 was actually driven by another very interesting person, if I might say so. Jann Mardenborough, who you might know as the hero from the Gran Turismo franchise, who won the Gran Turismo Academy, became a race car driver himself, and ever since has lots of great and inspirational achievements as a real-world race car driver.

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN – SEPTEMBER 21: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing walks in the pit lane during the F1 Grand Prix of Azerbaijan at Baku City Circuit on September 21, 2025 in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Photo by Jayce Illman/Getty Images)

“But what I want to get at is this is actually extremely interesting. We have Jann on P2, who managed to close the gap to the Verstappen.com race car from 1 minute 10 to just 24 seconds, together of course with their team-mates and traffic and etc.

“We have Chris Lulham, who started – of course he had some karting experience – but he went more professionally in iRacing as a sim racer back in 2019 up until now. And he was so good that Max Verstappen chose him among also other drivers to participate in his Verstappen.com race team where he wants to give opportunities to drivers who come from sim racing and put them in the real race car driver seat.

“Right now, Chris Lulham is extremely successful in the Fanatec World GT Esports Sprint Series. He also had many other successes.

“But we have Jann, we have Chris, we have Max Verstappen, who is also a highly successful sim racer. We have Jimmy Broadbent, Steve Alvarez Brown, my team-mates. We have Tim Heinemann, who is extremely successful now coming from KW to Falken Race Team – of course highly successful sim racers who are becoming dominating real-life racers.”

“So the result of last weekend and all the other achievements of other drivers that I mentioned should definitely by now kill the stigma of the fact ‘oh, sim racers are just some gamers’.

“I believe as a matter of fact that in between now to the next 10 years, it’s going to be mandatory to be a sim racer before you’re going to be considered a professional race car driver I would say by teams so you can start competing in real-life racing and people would not really look at it, ‘oh sim racing is just a game,’ because let’s face it: the reality is you only need a sim hardware – electricity bill of course – and you can drive as much as you want.”

Misha suggested that a sim setup would be a wiser investment for budding racing drivers than track programs that require huge funding. He said:

“If you crash you just hit the restart button and you go again. The reason why it is so hard to become a professional race car driver and to make it up to Formula 1 is because the running costs and travel costs. If you go into karting championship, I believe the first racing years cost you already quarter of a million euro to the world karting championship.

“You might be spending up to a million euro a year because you have the team cost, travel cost, the running cost of a kart purchase, tyres, brakes, fuel, yo…