Christian Horner has ruled out the possibility of Max Verstappen missing an F1 Grand Prix to compete in a GT3 race. However, the Red Bull team principal did confirm that he is free to continue pursuing his sports car racing passion outside of his race weekend commitments.

Verstappen raised eyebrows during the one-week break ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix when he showed up at a test and set-up session for the Nurburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS). The Dutchman, competing under the pseudonym 'Franz Hermann', broke the Nurburgring Nordschleife GT3 lap record as he competed in a Verstappen.com Racing liveried Ferrari 296 machine. The four-time F1 world champion's work for Emil Frey Racing has not gone unnoticed, and Verstappen plans to extend his involvement into competing in NLS events in the future.

Asked whether there was a desire to compete in the Nurburgring 24 Hours in the future, he explained: “Yeah, I would like to do that in the future. That’s why I’m doing all these things, to prepare a bit, get a bit of experience. So you don’t need to do that in the future.”

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