Max Verstappen vs. 100 Normies in Go-Karts

This is fun: Red Bull took over one of the karting tracks at Silverstone (home of the British Grand Prix), put 100 regular folks in karts, positioned four-time F1 champ Max Verstappen at the back of the pack, and gave him 75 minutes (or 30 laps) to pass everyone. Spoiler alert: he only needed 35 minutes. (And yes, his kart was the same speed as everyone else’s…you can see it in the straights later in the race.)

They had F1’s lead commentator Alex Jacques call the race and used a feature called Proximity Chat, where Alex, Max, and whoever Max was fixing to pass did a three-way live voice chat. They should implement this in F1 (only half kidding).¹

I guess this is part of an occasional KDO series about normal folks competing against world class athletes; previous installments include The Worst NBA Player Is Way Better Than You, Soccer: 55 vs. 2, All for One and One for All (three expert fencers vs 50 amateurs), and Olympic Gold Medalist Dominates the 100m at Her Kid’s Sports Day Event.

And perhaps this fits here as well, tangentially: “Earlier this year I made a bet with Craig Mod. He felt sure that robots would soon be able to play basketball better than humans.” Hmm!

1. Could you imagine though? Drivers could try and emulate the voice of their opponent’s crew chief and hit ‘em with a “Kimi, showing a slow puncture in the left rear, box box…” ↩

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