DTM boss opens door to Max Verstappen debut

Max Verstappen would be "very welcome" in the DTM should he wish to make a guest appearance, according to a series boss. 

Verstappen's extracurricular activities away from F1 were highlighted last week when he took a GT3 car out for practice laps at the Nurburgring, under the pseudonym Franz Hermann. 

Helmut Marko has claimed Verstappen was immediately on the pace and lowered the track record by nearly two seconds for the class, with Verstappen known to harbour a love of GT3 racing, especially with his own team. 

Reflecting on Verstappen's test, ADAC boss Thomas Voss, which runs the DTM, opened the doors to Verstappen making a guest appearance.

"Max Verstappen is of course very welcome in the DTM," he told Motorsport Total. 

"Max is Max. I got to know him when I was still in Oschersleben and he drove a Formula season with Timo Rumpfkeil [in 2013].

"He was already very strong-willed back then. I'm completely convinced: if he gets into a GT3 car, he'll master it in no time.

"I think he's fast in everything, and he's a natural when it comes to driving. He just has so much fun driving everything he gets his hands on."

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Verstappen to GT3?

Verstappen's handful of practice laps were in the Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 machine, with team boss Lorenz Frey-Hilti believing the quadruple F1 world champion would be a good fit should he take part in a GT3 race.

"I have no idea if he would be allowed to, but he keeps saying he would love to do a GT3 guest appearance," he added, also to Motorsport.Total.

"He also really likes endurance racing. He keeps talking about Le Mans, Spa, and the Nürburgring. I assume that will be a topic after his Formula 1 career. But who knows?

"He really likes these cars, I told him: if he ever has a weekend off and wants to drive a guest race, that would be really great. He would get a perfectly prepared car. 

"We would love it if he did that with us – and we would do everything we could.

"Of course, everything has to be right, but he would be hard to beat.

"I've seen a lot of good drivers, but he's in a class of his own, otherwise, he wouldn't have been world champion so often. If you're fast in a Formula 1 car, that doesn't automatically mean you're fast in a GT car - we've seen that many times. But the way he handles this car, he's in a class of his own in the GT world too."