Max Verstappen responds to Daniel Ricciardo’s Le Mans dream team call

Max Verstappen has joked that his former team-mate Daniel Ricciardo is "a smart man" for picking him for his dream Le Mans line-up. In fact, he revealed that the pair of them had already discussed the possibility of it.

In a recent interview with the Beyond the Grid podcast, the Australian talked about his time at Red Bull and his exit from Formula 1. While he discussed what was next for him, he said that a Le Mans entry could be on the list. When asked who he'd team up with, Max Verstappen was the first name on his list. Sebastian Vettel was also an option, making something he called a "nice little Red Bull reunion" of sorts.

“He’s a smart man to choose me in the car," Verstappen joked. "But we have to see. It just depends on a lot of things.”

The four-time world champion has made no secret of his interest in endurance racing with him recently competing at Portimao, where he and his team finished ninth. He did, however, stress that he would only take on Le Mans with full preparation.

“Also for me, if I want to do it, I want to do it proper with really good prep. And at the moment I cannot do that. I don’t have the time - the free time to dedicate to a Le Mans project with all the other things that I’m also doing outside of Formula 1.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, congratulates pole man Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

Ricciardo’s comments were the first time he had publicly spoken about racing again in any real capacity. But Verstappen said the idea had already come up between them.

“This is not new to me, of course. Yeah, we have spoken,” he said. “I don’t think we are the types that always need to share everything. We talk about a lot of things in the background.”

Ricciardo said a full season of racing did not appeal, and Verstappen believes that a one-off would only be worthwhile if they could be seriously competitive.

“He doesn’t see himself coming back for a whole race, like a season. But the one-offs can interest him. Why not?

“But again, I think if we do something like that, he will for sure agree that it needs to be proper. It needs to be for a chance to win. For a chance to win against people that do it a whole season, you need to be prepared really well. You just need to find the right timings.”

Verstappen and Ricciardo were team-mates at Red Bull from 2016 to 2018. Ricciardo said on the podcast that a shared Le Mans entry could be a way to “give the people what they want” after the pair’s split at the end of 2018.

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