Verstappen aiming to set up own GT3 team from 2025

Through Verstappen.com Racing, the Dutchman and his family are planning to put together a two-car GT3 team that could compete in series like the GT World Challenge (GTWC) from 2025 onwards.

"It all started with Team Redline in sim racing," Verstappen said in an interview the Dutch magazine Formule 1.

"With Verstappen.com Racing we are sponsoring and supporting various racing activities from people close to me. We are also active in DTM and the GTWC Sprint with Thierry Vermeulen [the son of Verstappen's manager Raymond Vermeulen] and with my father in rallying, but the end goal is to put together our own race team.

"The first step in our own GT3 team and then we'll see where we end up. It would be nice to be able to grow to the highest level in endurance racing.

"We are working on it at the moment. Next year will be tight, but I would like to have it as soon as possible. Having a GT3 team in 2025 with a minimum of two cars should be possible."

Verstappen, who is a keen sim racer, is hoping to create a platform that can pick up talented sim racers and prepare them for a career in GT racing, and says he is just as ambitious as a team owner as he is as a Formula 1 racer.

"If I do something, I want to do it right. I want to win with this as well. And it's about creating a stepping stone from sim racing to GT3, so that you don't have to only go through karting to get into motorsports, because that costs a lot of money at the moment.

"We have been working on it for a while. The planning phase is over, we are in action mode now."

Verstappen previously indicated he would be interested in switching to endurance racing after his F1 career, with the Le Mans 24 Hours' GT class switching to GT3 machinery next year.

But it remains to be seen in which sort of timeframe the Dutchman, who is romping to his third consecutive F1 world title this year, will make it to Le Mans, and whether his 2008 LMP2-winning father Jos will be part of it.

"I am not in a hurry," Verstappen told Motorsport.com at the end of last season. "A lot of things are changing in endurance racing and it's better to wait and see how everything turns out." 

I really respect Max trying to help talented sim racers get into motorsport.