Norris about absent Verstappen: "He's absolutely just scared"

Where Verstappen mainly uses the game iRacing in the simulator, this weekend in the official F1 sim race will be driven with the game F1 2019. The Dutchman doesn't play with it and indicated earlier that he doesn't feel like driving something in the back of the car. It takes a relatively long time to get the hang of a new game.

Norris positive on F1 2019

When Sky Sports asks Norris if Verstappen is just scared, the McLaren driver answers laughing: "Absolutely! But no, I have no idea", Norris continues about why the eight-time Grand Prix winner wouldn't participate. At least he thinks it's cool. "The F1 game is really good fun. You're racing an F1 car, it still feels quick, the cornering speeds and everything. You get the feeling of driving a Formula 1 car in some aspects, and you get to drive on a lot of the F1 tracks, which is good." The 2020 Formula 1 calendar just can't be raced on the circuits of Hanoi and Zandvoort.

Norris then goes into the iRacing platform, in which he frequently takes on his Dutch friend. "But you have some of the other programmes like iRacing, which is the one we compete against each other on, and there's just more variety. You can race GT cars, you can do single seaters, you can do a lot more different stuff. That's what I guess he [Verstappen] enjoys a bit more, the changing from one car to the other and the variety, rather than always driving on the F1 stuff."

Why is Verstappen not there?

Norris then goes into possible reasons why Verstappen might be absent. "So I don't think he's driven on it [F1 2019] much anyway and he always says that when he joins something he wants to join and win. So I don't know if he doesn't want to join because he knows he's not going to win, or the fact that he just doesn't spend much time on it and therefore he's not very confident", concludes the twenty year old talent.