Max Verstappen is open to the possibility of team ownership once his Formula 1 career draws to a close.
The Dutchman has made no secret that F1 is not his entire life and even suggested he may leave the category at the end of his current contract in 2028.
When he does step away, Verstappen has floated ideas in the sim racing space, or even team ownership, and future possibilities.
“I love my sim racing. Some people think it’s just a game, but it’s not,” he said in an interview with CNN.
“I have a lot of passion in that and I have a lot of plans for the future to build something around that to maybe bring some races to the real world, but in a proper way, not the half-half world, I would say, and see how far they can reach.
“I maybe want to have my own race team,” he added.
“I already of course started at a bit with Verstappen.com Racing; it’s integrated already in real racing plus the sim racing part.
“So there are so many opportunities in that as well, which I want to try and achieve, which I’m working on already.”
Verstappen is the current F1 benchmark.
He won the world championship in 2021 and 2022 and is on course for a third this year, holding a 99-point advantage over team-mate Sergio Perez with 12 races remaining.
Success this year would see him enter an elite club of drivers who’ve won three championships in succession; a feat only achieved by Juan Manuel Fangio, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, and Lewis Hamilton.
And while dedicated to that task for now, Verstappen claimed his ultimate legacy in the sport is unimportant to him.
“I’m here at the moment trying to achieve everything I can,” he said.
“I try to, of course, give everything I have to that but I also know there’s much more to life than only Formula 1.
“Once I’m done in Formula 1, I want to just enjoy my life and do other things.
“Then, what happened in Formula 1 is done. It is what it is, I mean, it’s written down, but it’s not something probably I will look back to when I’m 60 or 70 – it’s probably not something you care about too much because that’s something that has happened earlier on in your life, which you’ve worked for a long time, but yeah, that’s done.”
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