It was a common comparison during the opening race in Melbourne: the new F1 rules would make the sport look too much like the game Mario Kart. Both Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen saw similarities with the famous game during the Grand Prix, and the Dutch world champion now jokingly tells how he has adjusted his race preparations: ‘I have traded my race simulator for a Nintendo Switch’.
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Formula 1 drove a Grand Prix under the new regulations for the first time last race weekend in Australia, and comparisons with the game Mario Kart were soon made. According to Charles Leclerc, the new boost button, the so-called Overtake Mode, felt like ‘the mushroom in Mario Kart’. The Monegasque went past George Russell at full speed partly due to the new button.
Max Verstappen also noted after the race that ‘Mario Kart-like things were happening in the midfield’. In the press conference preceding the Chinese GP, the Dutch world champion takes the comparison even further. Verstappen jokes that he has adjusted his usual preparation for a Grand Prix after the Australian GP: “I have traded my simulator for a Nintendo Switch, and am now practicing with Mario Kart. Finding the mushrooms is going well, but it is still difficult to find the blue shells. I’m still working on that”. Verstappen is then asked by Gabriel Bortoleto if he has already found the rocket, another element from the game. “The rocket isn’t there yet, but that will come.”
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‘I don’t want to leave Formula 1’
Despite the ongoing jokes about Mario Kart, Verstappen does not plan to just leave Formula 1. “I actually don’t want to leave Formula 1,” he says honestly. “I would like to have a bit more fun, but I also do other things that are very fun. For example, I get to race on the Nordschleife. I hope I can also race at Spa in the coming years, and Le Mans. So I try to find other things that I also really enjoy. Of course, my team continues, so I have a lot of positive distraction at the same time. But at the same time, it’s a bit contradictory, because I don’t really enjoy driving the car. On the other hand, I do enjoy working with all the people in the team and from the engine department.”
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Read everything about the Chinese GP here
