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Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen's own team - Verstappen.com Racing - enters its fourth season in 2025, and continues to grow in scope.
A programme that began through backing Thierry Vermeulen - a friend of Max's and son of Verstappen's manager Raymond Vermeulen - in Germany's ADAC GT Masters back in 2022, it has since graduated into top-level international GT3 competitions DTM and now GT World Challenge Europe.
What's new
In early 2023, while attending Vermeulen’s first GT World Challenge test at Paul Ricard, Verstappen expressed his ambition to launch his own full-fledged GT3 team by 2025.
And the Red Bull driver has stayed true to his word.
Although technically supported by the British squad 2Seas Motorsport - 2022 British GT champion - this latest initiative marks the first time that Verstappen.com Racing will enter a championship under its own name rather than as a partner to an existing entry.
The chosen car for the Endurance part of the GTWC championship, including the Spa 24 Hours, is an Aston Martin Vantage bearing the number 33, the same number Verstappen originally selected upon entering F1 before switching to number 1 after claiming his first world title in 2021.
Vermeulen, Chris Lulham - a driver for the Team Redline simracing enterprise that Verstappen so often races with online - and Harry King make up the roster.
But what are the targets? A big one, Verstappen admits, is that transition from virtual to reality - and it is clear his aim is to give further credibility to simracing and the drivers he finds himself competing with and against online.
“It has always been my dream to support young drivers, and for a while now, I have been trying to create the possibility for a sim driver to progress to real-world racing,” he acknowledged.
Let's take a closer look at the drivers.
Thierry Vermeulen
Under the Verstappen.com patronage, the 22-year-old Vermeulen has scored podiums in ADAC GT Masters, the DTM and the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint series.
His DTM exploits will continue in a Ferrari 296 GT3 run by Emil Frey Racing, which is also the car and the team that Vermeulen and Lulham will drive for in the Sprint races of the GTWC.
Vermeulen said his friend Verstappen "plays a massive role" in the project.
"Not only as a personal friend but also as a coach and mentor [...] he has helped me enormously."
Chris Lulham
The 21-year-old Lulham was a prominent driver on the international karting scene just under a decade ago - peaking with a second-place finish in the CIK-FIA world championship (OK Junior class) in 2017.
That year, the field include the likes of new Formula 1 drivers Gabriel Bortoleto and Jack Doohan, Ferrari F1 protege Dino Beganovic, Peugeot World Endurance Championship driver Malthe Jakobsen and Lola Formula E driver Zane Maloney - and Lulham finished ahead of all of them.
In a not at all uncommon turn of events, Lulham never had the budget for a proper go at a post-junior karting career, so pivoted to simracing. But he was at the sharp end racing in the UK-based one-make Radical series last year, so is not race-rusty in the real world.
"Driving a real car is physical, not super comparable in terms of the experience, but the technique is very similar. The main difference is, of course, the G-forces. The things I have learned with Team Redline over the past four years, we apply the same at the real racetrack. That for me has made the step very smooth. I would say it’s come very naturally," he said.
“Max has been working side-by-side with Thierry and myself, developing and setting up the car."
Harry King
As mentioned above, King will join Lulham and Vermeulen for the Endurance races.
The 24-year-old is unmistakably a top-tier Porsche Carrera Cup racing specialist - he's won UK and Benelux regional series and was second in the F1-supporting Porsche Supercup last year.
But he is building a profile in endurance racing, too, having already run the Asian Le Mans Series schedule in LMP2.
Other ventures
Beyond the GTWC entries and the DTM campaign for Vermeulen, the Verstappen.com also covers Max's father Jos' rallying exploits.
The elder Verstappen will continue to drive a Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 run by Wevers Sport, with Renaud Jamoul as his co-driver. Their programme will include both the Belgian Rally Championship (BRC) and the European Rally Championship (ERC).
Additionally, a new division is being launched in 2025 - Verstappen.com Racing Pro Simulation, a "state-of-the-art" training facility.
It will feature two cutting-edge 180-degree Simulator Domes - one dedicated to formula cars (F4 to F1) and another for GT racing.
