There’s only a couple of days left to go in the latest Red Bull Beat the Pro time trial in Gran Turismo Sport, but there’s a new benchmark time to aim for.
The original challenge had players attempting to beat a lap time set by Red Bull Athlete and AlphaTauri Formula One driver Yuki Tsunoda, in a dedicated in-game time trial.
Tsunoda has been practicing in a brand-new simulator for unfamiliar tracks in his debut season in F1, but has proven no match for drivers who regularly race in GT Sport. Although his official registered lap time, a 2:00.627 lap around Suzuka in the Honda NSX Gr.3, was decent, it was already well beaten by a significant number of drivers before the time had even been revealed.
With Tsunoda’s time eclipsed, Red Bull has apparently turned to its senior F1 drivers to set a slightly stiffer challenge. Sergio Perez, who isn’t well known for esports activities, couldn’t oblige, with a 2:05.288 as his best, but Max Verstappen is a regular in sim racing and has raised the bar considerably.
The new “Beat the Pro” benchmark then is the Dutch driver’s 1:58.872, with the F1 championship leader beating his colleague to the line by roughly 1.75 seconds.
Of course the best GT Sport drivers in the world won’t find that a particularly difficult time to match. At present the best times on the leaderboard — from the usual suspects like Valerio Gallo, Jose Serrano, Takuma Miyazono, and Igor Fraga — are more than a second clear of this mark.
However, for the rest of us it will prove a sterner test. For comparison, Tsunoda’s time is just on the fringes of the top 2,000, while Verstappen’s is in the top 250 presently.
You’ll have two more days to see if you’re better than a professional F1 driver at GT Sport, with the event closing at 1500 UTC on Sunday October 24. The event is free to enter, and players can access it by heading into Sport Mode/Time Trials within Gran Turismo Sport.
See more articles on Max Verstappen and Red Bull.
