Original subtitles

Morning. Morning.

How's it going? You good? Good, you? Yeah, not bad.

I always had this passion of eventually setting up kind of my own racing team.

We decided to create the Sapper .com Racing.

At the moment, of course, you're re -driving in the GT3 car.

Especially after all the right -handed, when you get that chicane.

But it's much better like this. There's so much more confidence on the braking,

on the entry to the corner. It's just much more stable.

What I also enjoy is to see young talent coming through.

So that's why to try and create your own team and seeing that growth of drivers

also coming through is something that I enjoy.

Max, you are the Greek Thai World Champion. That's absolutely

Very lovely.

People sometimes ask me, what do you do in your free time? And they expect you

to be something completely different to anyone else. But I also just enjoy the

normal stuff.

He will do everything to win. You see the competitiveness coming out for sure.

Hey, you shut up.

I think my life off track is very normal.

You know what I would like right now? Kebab.

You know, very simple, how it should be.

I mean, we're only 55 minutes late.

I thought you read Magnus the Master.

He's insane.

Nice and simple.

We were thinking

about something what Max was doing for a long time in several topics.

It was Tim Racing, he was very engaged in GT3.

And Jos was doing rally.

And we thought to bring everything under one umbrella, in one look and feel,

where Max is basically overviewing all three pillars, with the passion what he

has for racing in general.

My main focus of course is still on F1. I can't dedicate my own time fully on

it.

I mean, it's something that I grew up with in the back of my mind.

One day, you know, when let's say F1 is enough, you don't want to continue

driving anymore. You want to run your own team.

Eventually, I would like to have Verstappen .com Racing as a team.

At the moment, we are at a team with our drivers, with our own libraries and

sponsors, but the target is to just have fully your own team.

My son is driving in the GTM this year, and we have to learn a lot in GT because

it's a different ballgame than Formula 1.

I think it's the toughest GT3 category out there at the moment. All the good

drivers are in it, and to come in as a kind of a rookie with not much

is tough, but it's a good learning school.

Of course, there's moments where he's maybe not so happy with a certain

performance, but he will be also the first one to say how I can do better. So

it's not just pointing fingers, it's always pushing me forward to improve and

learn from my mistakes.

I'm there to coach him, I'm there to help him. He sees the data, he sees what

I'm doing differently to him, and it's all about processing and learning.

The car he's driving with at the moment is still very new, so it's normal that

you are still learning and finding a lot of things.

I jumped in the car myself, so I wanted to feel what was going on.

Of

course,

it's a new car for him, so just talking about the buttons, how everything works,

every car is a little bit different.

With the handle that's here.

Actually, if you're in the pit now, if you press the brake hard and the button

here on the back of the steering wheel, then this goes from white to green.

And now you can... Where is that button?

Ah, here. Yes.

You don't have to press it. Just click once. So now it's activated because it's

green.

And then you immediately start when we're in the air.

Then you just have a drop start and then you can just drive away without

pressing anything. Without pressing anything? Yes. And when you come back

I

think

he feels the limitation of the car in the second lap.

He's steering the car with his body. He feels everything.

He knows exactly what the car is missing to go faster.

For Thierry, Max is the master.

He's a three -time world champion, so if he said you have to do this and this,

then he's listening.

The second round, the first time I really started it, I almost spun it off.

At the end of the round, I went all the way to the right.

And then I went in, I went all the way to the left.

I just didn't get the round together, because theoretically I have seven.

You get fast in the second sector.

I had it very difficult because of those two cells.

You just didn't feel it there.

But that's good.

I think if you have a bit of that confidence, you can go into that box so

It's

still

warm.

We don't want to make Max too difficult.

I think he just woke up.

Can you see him?

No,

quarter over.

Quarter past nine, huh? That's Max.

Oh,

he said 9 .45.

Breakfast 9 .45, first thing 10 .15. Oh, 10 .15.

Okay.

I looked at the schedule, it says 9 .45.

Arrival. Yeah, but it says 9 .45 to like 10 .05, arrival.

Breakfast 9 .45 and first thing 10 .15.

It's time to qualify in Monaco. The streets here in Monte Carlo.

Well,

Max, enjoy your day.

So welcome everybody to Osher Schleben as we get set for our first qualifying

session of the new DTM season 2023.

When I watch

my friends racing, I'm probably more nervous than I ever am in the car myself

Once you're in control, you know what you're doing but then someone else is

controlling their job, right, their driving.

Nobody has put in a bank a lap at the moment. They've all done their system

checks, their installation lap. They're back into the pits. There's just two

cars out on the track at the moment.

The stopwatch for Thierry is the same as the stopwatch for the rest.

On the end, you are competing with the rest of the field, and Thierry has to

prove his speed.

And, of course...

With Verstappen .com and Red Bull on the car, we want to compete in the front.

So he knows what the outlines are. To be part of this program, he has to

perform.

On the end, we want to be competitive.

I told my son, I'm happy to support you, but we have to compete in the front.

I didn't feel super confident.

Just struggled a lot.

Then you start, as a driver, to push even more, try things which are just not

possible, you know? You just try to bring more speed into the corner, and

it's only getting worse.

I remember just... Talking to yourself like, what the fuck are you doing, you

know?

Nope, little sleep.

He should

have, the lap he did at 34, he

should have slowed it down instead of then continue pushing.

You look at the screens and you are just in the bottom half.

It's just frustrating because you put so much effort into it. You try to prepare

yourself so much and you have moments where it's going really well and then

one moment to the other moment it's not working anymore.

He did a bit of go -karting here and did very little, not much at all.

I think step by step he started to pick up a little bit the virus of the racing

as well. So at one point we were like, well, why don't we give him...

A go in a GT4 car.

See how it goes. We did those track days.

And you could see, like, with no basically racing experience, that he

up quite naturally, I would say.

He did a drifting course in Germany, and he was FaceTiming me when he was doing

his lap.

Half an hour later, I got the first picture that he was crashed.

So... Yeah, it goes with crashes.

He's racing against guys who grew up with me, who have a lot of racing

experience. So it's not easy to immediately, you know, be in the fight

them, know exactly what to do.

But it's good.

It's the hard way.

In things you cannot really train, that just comes naturally.

It's just that those racing scenarios and just progressing through a race

weekend, knowing when to push, when to be on the limit or not.

But again, that I also didn't learn in one or two years. It's just every year

you just get a bit better at it.

I'm curious to see how Jos will play.

He will cheat for sure.

Look who's behind me.

This is the director.

This is Max.

Well, let's see who's going to win.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Still eating them out.

I wonder if my dad finds it.

Cherie is, of course, the son of my manager, first of all, but I know him

he was basically born.

We kind of, you know, like, grew up.

My first real memory with Max was probably when I was about six and I had

remote control Formula One car.

And he will for sure remember this story.

We were playing with the car. He was like, can I give it a try?

So I gave the remote control to him. And about five seconds later, the car ended

up in the water.

That was my birthday present gone.

I need to still ask him if he can get me a new one.

During pedal you see more his competitive side. At the end, you know,

to win and he will do everything to win. So he wants to have the best racket, he

wants to have the best technique playing, he wants to feel ready so he

sure that he's fully prepared.

For me it was also funny seeing kind of that side in him in a friendship because

I mean during pedal it's still pretty relaxed but you see the competitiveness

coming out for sure.

Normally they always say you shouldn't start a business with friends or

whatever, but it doesn't depend.

I mean, if I believe and I see that they're well qualified, then why can you

be friends?

Everyone has to do their job to the best, so at the end of the day, the

performance, of course, comes over friendship. But everyone knows that that

should be, I think, the standard anyway when you set up a team, that it's not

there just to have an easygoing time and I'm there to win.

I'm not there to just fill up the field.

I love it.

Even when you play shit, it's still fun.

It's all about trying to get better.

What do you do in the start? Do you just brake, gas, brake, gas?

You have to brake the gas a little bit. Even if you have a turbo lag, you have

to keep the gas on.

We try that, but sometimes we get a gearbox that is too hot.

Well, then I'll just warm it up a little bit.

But like this, a little bit, not of course, I'm going to put a full rim on

but just like that.

It's always good to come to a test day where there's no pressure, there's no

around. You can just focus on your own things and also try a lot of different

things to really know what direction to go to.

struggle a little bit it's the on the curb the car on the front doesn't seem

absorb the curb very nice it's like the car was very oversteering which i

normally don't mind but it was too much i i want to feel under like

try to get to an understeer balance because every corner i'm just fighting

rear yeah it just feels a bit light on the rear the more you can find there

When he was speaking, it was getting straight on the point.

And also for the magnitude of the issue, it was clear how much I had to do.

Because, of course, being an F1, they listen to you a little bit more.

It's normal.

Cherie is a bit more of a rookie.

And, of course, the engineers are also quite stubborn. That's how they are.

I think he was already complaining a bit, like, ah, the car's a bit on the

opposite side. It's not, you know, very stable on the rear. But they were like,

yeah. Do we trust his feedback fully or not?

But then I jumped in the car and I said the same thing to what Cherie said.

That's also very important for them to know that what I say is the same as

Cherie's, so they can trust his feedback.

I had a lot of interaction with different drivers in the past, also

important drivers, but no one, let's say, at the level of Mark.

You know, everyone can do a fast lap.

probably the least hardest thing but it's also understanding why you did a

lap or understand where can i improve more just work for it like you know work

hard understand the mechanical side of the cars as well the whole package that

needs to come together and that's what i try to explain step by step

I think also what I feel this car... I think it's commitment and

it's precision.

Always looking to the details, which I try to do the best myself.

But I think with the experience he has, he's really good at that and always

thinking in advance.

It's very quick with the talk process.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't know.

I'm really curious.

Look at our top speed this now.

They're up 20. They gave us 20. Fucking hell, green, mate.

See him go directly up to speed.

Everyone at one point can put a quite quick lap.

But for him it just comes so quick. Even if it's a new car, he can just drive

around the problems and use his talent and his experience to directly be on the

pace.

I know what to expect from this kind of guy.

In this case was something really unexpected in a way that he was

lap time at a level which normally is not existing in the real life. So you

surprised even if you expect.

So yes, then you remember it's something to say.

with your friends when you are in the future in the bar

you could just see the eyes

lit up from end of day one to day two and you could see the comfort in the

behavior for them it's like when we did the lap time they're like wow you know

the car is quick we made it quick it really feels a lot quicker like feels

a different car

So again, it's like a whole boost to the team at the end of the day. So they all

went to the next race, I think, full of confidence that, yes, now we have a car

that we can fight up front.

So it was great to be in Mugello because over the two days I gained a lot of

confidence back.

I think also with the team, they started to trust me a bit more, maybe with

certain set -up feedback.

So it just kind of makes you forget the bad moments before and like a fresh

start for the next weekend.

Looks so good, I like the way it moves.

Unbelievable guys.

You deserve that. What an unbelievable season we're having.

Unbelievable. Large and in charge.

Because I did Max Verstappen, what a great race, and he stinted on medium.

Later, when this race was.

Yes, because it's very soft and very painful, of course.

Yes, and it doesn't really hurt.

But yes, that's what it is. But why were you lower in pressure compared to the

tests? Yes, I think the temperature is just lower and that's why it came up

quickly. But is it colder now than Friday?

Yes, it's a lot colder.

Yes, it's something to be learned for the next time.

I'll tell you that, yes.

I'm curious. We're trying to follow the plane.

Hopefully it's a bit okay.

Well, that's good.

I'll let you know later.

Hopefully we'll have a good trip.

Yes. That's good. Good luck there.

Bye bye. Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Any more tips, dad?

What did he say? Any more tips?

Yes.

Let him go first.

And take a little more speed with you.

Next question.

Okay.

From GT4 into Porsche Cup to now into GT3.

Yeah, it's a tough learning school, but he's around, he's there. So I see the

potential is there.

I think in one or two years, you know, like he can pick up so much more

experience and then you become a more all -rounded driver.

Okay.

Easy.

I'm pretty confident that he can really fight for, you know, race wins and who

knows.

Championship.