The four-time F1 champion headed to Japan for a Red Bull Motorsports challenge that saw him jump behind the wheel of a Nissan Z NISMO GT500 and attempt to beat the benchmark lap time set by leading Super GT driver Atsushi Miyake.
Verstappen’s outing came ahead of his debut in next week’s Nurburgring 24 Hours, with the Dutchman continuing to build experience in a variety of GT and endurance machinery away from F1.
Driving at Fuji for the first time in wet conditions, Verstappen was given only a brief installation lap before beginning his flying runs in the 650-horsepower GT500 machine.
Miyake had earlier laid down a benchmark of 1m44.075s around the soaked circuit, with Verstappen initially admitting he would simply try to learn the car as quickly as possible.
“I have done quite a lot of different cars, so you very quickly just try to learn everything,” Verstappen said.
“I love racing, so to try all these kinds of cars is just really special.”
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Despite the difficult conditions, Verstappen immediately adapted to the car and came within a tenth of Miyake’s benchmark on his first timed effort before producing a stunning 1m42.290s lap on his next attempt.
Host Jeremiah Burton could barely believe the performance as Verstappen smashed the target time after only two flying laps in the car.
“That’s insane!” Burton said during the run.
“He’s less than a tenth off in his second lap ever in this car. That’s nuts.”
Verstappen later admitted the changing conditions made the final laps increasingly difficult as standing water continued to build around the circuit.
“It was getting a bit tricky to push,” Verstappen said.
“My first lap, I was like, ‘I can do a bit better than that’, then I did a ’42.
“It was getting used to the car, how you go on throttle and braking. The steering is very different and feeling the grip of the tyres.
“It was a really cool experience. Hopefully next time it is dry.”
Miyake was equally impressed by Verstappen’s speed, saying he had been curious to see how the F1 champion would adapt to the vastly different machinery.
“He is a world champion but I was curious to see how different his driving would be if we shared the same car,” Miyake said.
“Although it was unfortunately raining, I was still able to actually see how good he is, so I was really excited and had a great time.”
Verstappen has steadily increased his endurance racing workload over the last 12 months. He secured the licence required for endurance competition through the Nurburgring Langstrecken Series before claiming victory on his GT3 debut in a Ferrari 296 GT3 last year.
Earlier this year he also returned to the Nordschleife aboard the Mercedes-AMG GT3 he is set to race in next week’s event, initially winning the four-hour race by 59.5 seconds before later being disqualified for exceeding the maximum tyre allocation.
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