Max Verstappen will not take part in late night sim racing during F1 race weekends, claims Helmut Marko

Red Bull chief advisor Helmut Marko has claimed that Max Verstappen will not take part in late-night sim racing during race weekends. The driver's late night shift as he took part in sim racing became a topic of conversation on the live broadcast as the driver sounded more agitated than usual during the race.

He was shouting on the team radio and had quite a few choice words to say about the strategy during the race. The conversation between Max and his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase was quite intense and it appeared to get heated as the race went on.

The race featured Max Verstappen jumping up to P2 in the race at the start after overtaking Lando Norris off the track. The Red Bull driver gave up the position but then spent most of his race trying to get the jump on Lewis Hamilton, who overtook the driver with the help of an undercut. Following this, a seemingly agitated Max ultimately made contact with Lewis and compromised his finishing position.

During all of this, Max Verstappen's late-night sim racing schedule before the race became a talking point as the Sky Sports commentator continued to bring up the point frequently during the broadcast.

In his column for "Speedweek", Red Bull's Helmut Marko touched on this and revealed that the driver would not take part in late-night sim races in the future. He wrote,

"Max Verstappen was rather thin-skinned this weekend, and of course it didn't take long for criticism to arise - no wonder, since he spends half the night playing sim racing. I have to say that in Imola he didn't go to bed until three in the morning after a sim racing session - and then won the Grand Prix."

He added,

"Max has a different sleep pattern, and he had his seven hours of sleep. His late-night sim appearance on the Hungary weekend only came about because a driver in his team had dropped out. Nevertheless, we agreed that he would no longer run simulations so late in the future."

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Helmut Marko shares that Max Verstappen lost 15 seconds behind Lewis Hamilton

Helmut Marko also revealed that the team made a mistake when it tried to extend Max Verstappen's stint lengths and use the fresh tire advantages to pull off overtakes. During the race, Max was undercut by Lewis Hamilton in the first stint and then ended up getting undercut by the Mercedes driver and Charles Leclerc in the second stint.

According to Marko, that was the wrong approach as the fresh tire did not have the advantage that it was supposed to, and hence Max Verstappen ended up losing 15 seconds behind Lewis Hamilton. He said,

"We only managed fifth place with Max Verstappen at the Hungarian GP and the basis for that was that we were wrong in terms of race strategy. We drastically underestimated or overestimated the overtaking delta, depending on how you look at it."

He added,

"We thought we would stay out longer so that we could easily overtake later with fresher tires. But a clear advantage with fresher tires was only visible for two laps. The overtaking delta should have been significantly higher than last year. But it wasn't, and as a result we lost 15 seconds behind Hamilton."

The Red Bull driver certainly had an off-weekend in Hungary with things not going his way. It will be interesting to see how he tries to bounce back in Belgium with a looming engine penalty for the race.